Nations of the earth are not cutting carbon emissions anywhere near enough to limit global warming to 2 C Degrees above pre-industrial levels.  And the technologies needed to remove actively remove CO2 from the atmosphere do not exist, according to a brutal new report.

The European Academies Science Advisory Council (EASAC) report evaluates the outlook for carbon dioxide removal, and was reviewed and endorsed by the national academies of more than two dozen countries.  Researchers looked over a number of options for taking carbon dioxide out of the air, including techniques like reforestation, soil management, plankton fertilization, industrial carbon dioxide capture plants, and others.

To keep global warming to the 2 degree limit specified by the Paris Climate Deal, these techniques must be soaking up at least 11 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year around 2050.  But it's highly unlikely they will reach that benchmark.  Reforestation is probably the easiest technique of trapping carbon in the soil, but it's far outpaced by deforestation - logging and stripping lands of carbon-eating vegetation.

There's a lot of talk about industrial capture plants that will make use of underground carbon storage infrastructures, but no concrete action on building these things on a scale that would actually make a difference.  There's no financial incentive for saving the planet, rather than exploiting the living hell out of it.

The report concludes that carbon-absorbing technologies must be developed more question - but emissions must be cut more than the current standard so that Earth's future isn't dependent on technology.