As the planet faces record heat waves and extreme weather events, science is responding with innovative solutions to curb global warming. In 2025, three breakthroughs stand out for their potential to turn the tide of the climate crisis.
1. Large-Scale Direct Air Capture (DAC)
What is it?
Technology that extracts CO₂ directly from the atmosphere and stores it underground or converts it into useful products.
Advances in 2025:
- Reduced costs: From $600/ton in 2020 to $150/ton thanks to new absorbent materials.
Massive projects:
- Orca 2.0 (Iceland) captures 4,000 tons/year, equivalent to 790 cars.
- STRATOS (Texas) will be the world’s largest plant (1 million tons/year).
- Innovative uses: CO₂ converted into sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).
Challenges:
- Requires large amounts of renewable energy.
- Scalability still limited in the face of 36 billion tons of annual global emissions.
2. Nuclear Fusion: The Holy Grail of Clean Energy
What is it?
Replicating the power of the sun on Earth to generate unlimited energy without emissions or long-lived radioactive waste.
Advances in 2025:
- SPARC (MIT/Commonwealth Fusion): First reactor to achieve Q>1 (more energy produced than invested).
- ITER (France): Begins testing phase with plasma at 150 million °C.
- Helion Energy: Agreement with Microsoft to supply fusion energy in 2028.
Advantages:
- Almost unlimited fuel (deuterium from water).
- Zero risk of core meltdown (as in Fukushima).
Barriers:
- Technical difficulty in containing the superheated plasma.
- Extremely high initial costs (ITER cost $22 billion).
3. Green Nitrogen Fertilizers
What is it?
Alternatives to conventional fertilizers (responsible for 2.1% of global emissions).
Innovations for 2025:
- Electrofertilizers: Produced with renewable energy (e.g., Nitricity project in California).
- Improved bacteria: Microorganisms that fix nitrogen are three times more efficient (Pivot Bio).
- Bans: The EU is phasing out ammonia-based fertilizers.
Potential impact:
- 30% reduction in nitrous oxide emissions (a gas 300 times worse than CO₂).
- Healthier soils and less water pollution.
How to Support These Advances
- Invest in climate startups (e.g., via Climate Capital).
- Lobby governments for R&D funding (the US is allocating $3.5 billion to DAC by 2025).
- Adopt already available solutions (e.g., biological fertilizers for gardens).
“We are in a critical decade: these technologies must scale now or never.” — Bill Gates, Breakthrough Energy.