*** Not expressing an opinion on global warming, not need to debate the science on that here. What we are confronting is a political reality, and this is one of those times where the perception IS the reality and our industry must reduce carbon emissions significantly, regardless as to the science either way ***
SAF (sustaniable aviation fuel) has been the obvious near-term mitigation for transport category aircraft, and numerous airlines are doing very small-scale demonstrations.
Carbon capture has always been a theoretical mitigation, since the underlying root of the problem is that we dig up carbon buried in geological formations, aka fossil fuels, and when the fuel is burned that carbon ends up in the atmosphere. Carbon capture pulls CO2 right out of the atmosphere and converts it to an inert compound which can be safely stored... typically back underground where it came from.
UAL has committed to operate the first industrial-scale carbon-capture system, as their path to carbon-zero by 2050. It's comforting to see the industry starting to address this on a large scale... before somebody addresses it for us, in a manner we're not going to like.
Carbon-capture has tremendous potential beyond aviation. Many sectors can practically reduce emissions to near zero at a specific point, such as the automotive industry using batteries to eliminate direct emissions from the operation of vehicles. But that doesn't account for carbon costs associated with industrial processes (ie mfg the vehicle) and power generation, etc... basically life in general. Ag processes emit carbon, especially livestock.
Carbon-capture could readily counter-act the carbon impact of those processes (industrial, ag, and biological) which cannot practically achieve carbon-zero, or even get close in some cases. Even better, it could actually reverse the carbon build-up if necessary, and employed on a large enough scale (probably need nuclear reactors to power that much carbon capture).
https://www.reuters.com/article/unit...-idUSL1N2IQ05W