Sustainability

22Sustainability of Carbon Storage and Sequestration

Gilbert Hinge¹, Rao Y. Surampalli², and Manish Kumar Goyal^{1, 3}

¹Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati, India

²Global Institute for Energy, Environment, and Sustainability, Lenexa, KS, USA

³Discipline of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Indore, India

22.1 Introduction

Climate change due to global warming is the major concern of the twenty-first century. The drastic increase in greenhouse gas emissions has been recognized as the major cause of global warming. Greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide (CO₂ ), nitrous oxide (N₂O) and methane (CH₄ ) trap most of the reflecting longwave radiation emitted by the earth to ensure that the earth maintains the moderate temperature required to support all life processes. However, human activities since the Industrial Revolution have contributed to an increase of these gases in the atmosphere. Atmospheric CO₂ concentrations have escalated from about 280 parts per million (ppm) prior to 1750–399.5 ppm in 2013, with methane levels from 722 to 1834 parts per billion (ppb) and N₂O levels from 270 to 328 ppb (IPCC 2014). Around 72% of the total greenhouse gases emitted is CO₂, whereas 18% is CH₄ and 9% is NO_x (Baumert 2005). CO₂ emissions are therefore considered as the major cause of global warming. According to IPCC (2007), increased levels of these concentrations are predicted to:

• elevate the earth's average temperature;
• affect ...