GMS 2022 EOY P2 Section C + Ans key

Class:Index:Name:Section CText 4 In the article below, the writer explains how the level of carbon dioxide can be reduced in the atmosphere. Read the article carefully and answer Questions 15 – 20 in the Question Paper.1Trees are our original carbon removal technology: Through photosynthesis, they take in carbon dioxide. They have lately been touted as a climate saviour, a way to rapidly reduce the carbon dioxide that has accumulated in the atmosphere as we cut our emissions.2Planting trees and protecting forests are a major part of many corporate efforts to offset carbon dioxide emissions. They are an important natural solution. Trees can quickly and cost-effectively remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by absorbing it through pores in their leaves and stash it away in their branches and trunks. But there's a catch. To effectively undo emissions, the carbon dioxide we take out of the atmosphere needs to stay out, but carbon dioxide removed from the atmosphere is only temporarily stored in trees, vegetation and soil. A sizeable part of our emissions remains in the atmosphere, much of it for centuries and some of it for millenniums to come. When companies rely on trees to offset their emissions, they risk merely hitting the climate "snooze" button.5103There is another option for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Our current emissions come primarily from burning fossil fuels that spent millions of years underground before being dug up. If we put carbon dioxide back into the ground, put it into deep oceans or turn it into rocks, we can keep it out of the atmosphere for tens of thousands of years, effectively counteracting the long-term impact of our current emissions.154There are a handful of facilities in Europe and North America that are currently doing permanent carbon dioxide removal; not much is known about these technologies that have been developed for less than a decade, and they are still quite expensive, with prices typically in the hundreds of dollars per tonne of carbon removed. But a growing number of scientists are working toward scaling them up and reducing costs.205In a recent report, it was found that society needs to rapidly reduce our carbon dioxide emissions over the coming decades to avoid potentially catastrophic changes to our climate. It also showed that removing carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere would be an "essential element", alongside rapid reductions in emissions, to meet our climate goals. Why will we need so much carbon dioxide removal? The science is clear that to stop the world from continuing to warm, we need to get emissions to "net zero". But there will always be some remaining emissions, and some greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide, will be extremely difficult and costly to fully eliminate.25306To date, carbon removal efforts by companies and governments have largely relied on trees and soil. But even under a best-case scenario, these can provide only around half of the removal needed. F