A Sponge to Soak Up Carbon Dioxide in the Air A Q&A with Berkeley Lab scientist Jeffrey Long on a material for capturing CO2 February 22, 2021 405 Shares Berkeley Lab is pursuing a portfolio of negative emissions technologies and related research to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. (Credit: Gary Whitton/Shutterstock) Human activity is now leading to the equivalent of 40 billion tons of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere each year, putting us on track to increase the planet’s temperature by 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels by 2040. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), we must limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius to avoid the most dangerous impacts of climate change.