Cambridge scientists are building a new research centre to develop radical ways ...

The University of Cambridge is building a radical new centre designed to explore potential ways of fighting climate change.  

The Centre for Climate Repair will explore radical geoengineering schemes designed to directly tackle the effects of climate change. 

Among such schemes being considered are the spraying of salt into clouds in order to make them reflect more warming sunlight back into space.

Others imagine the extraction of atmospheric carbon dioxide for use as fuel, or ocean fertilisation to get more of the gas taken up by the seas.

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The University of Cambridge's is building a Centre for Climate Repair to explore radical solutions to combat humanity's harmful changes to the Earth's climate (stock image)

The University of Cambridge's is building a Centre for Climate Repair to explore radical solutions to combat humanity's harmful changes to the Earth's climate (stock image)

The research lab is being planned in response to fears that our current approaches to minimise the emission of harmful greenhouse gases will not be enough on their own to prevent catastrophic and irreversible changes to the Earth's climate.

The mandate of the Centre for Climate Repair will be to 'solve the climate problem', University of Cambridge climate scientist Emily Shuckburgh told the BBC.

'It has to be. And we can't fail on it,' she added.

When complete, the centre will be the first of its kind in the world to focus exclusively on reducing carbon emissions and testing radical geoengineering concepts that could be used to try and reverse changes to the climate.

Areas for potential investigation include seeding clouds with salt to make them reflect more sunlight away from the Earth and fertilising the world's oceans to try and force them to take up more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

'What we do over the next 10 years will determine the future of humanity for the next 10,000 years,' centre coordinator and former chief scientific adviser Professor Sir David King said.

'There is no major centre in the world that would be focused on this one big issue,' he added. 

The Centre for Climate Repair is a part of the University of Cambridge's Carbon Neutral Futures Initiative, which Dr Shuckburgh is leading.

'This really is one of the most important challenges of our time,' she said.

'We know we need to be responding to it with all our efforts.' 

The centre will bring together researchers from various disciplines — not only climate researchers but also engineers and social scientists.

One geoengineering proposal the new centre may consider involves seeding clouds with salt — sprayed up into the air from unmanned, ocean-going vessels (pictured) — in order to make the clouds more reflective and send warming sunlight back out into space

One geoengineering proposal the new centre may consider involves seeding clouds with salt — sprayed up into the air from unmanned, ocean-going vessels (pictured) — in order to make the clouds more reflective and send warming sunlight back out into space

WHAT IS THE CENTRE FOR CLIMATE REPAIR?

The Centre for Climate Repair, to be located in Cambridge, will explore radical geoengineering schemes to directly tackle the effects of climate change.

When complete, the centre will be the first of its kind in the world. 

It is a part of the University of Cambridge's Carbon Neutral Futures Initiative, which is being led by Dr Emily Shuckburgh.

The project is being coordinated by former chief scientific adviser Professor Sir David King.

The centre will bring together researchers from various disciplines — not only climate researchers but also engineers and social scientists.

The lab is a response to fears that our current approaches to minimise the emission of harmful

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