難関大向け｜英語長文問題130（環境）681語＋和訳・解答解説

When people hear that technology can help slow global warming, they often imagine cleaner sources of energy: solar panels replacing coal, electric vehicles replacing gasoline cars, or buildings that waste less heat. Such changes are essential because they prevent carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere in the first place. Yet prevention alone raises a difficult question. Some activities, including certain industrial processes and forms of long-distance transport, are unusually hard to operate without releasing greenhouse gases. If those emissions cannot quickly be eliminated, should technology also be used to capture carbon after it is produced, or even remove carbon dioxide that is already in the air?

One approach is carbon capture, which separates carbon dioxide from gases produced by factories or power plants before much of it reaches the atmosphere. The captured gas can then be transported and stored underground. At first, this seems to offer a convenient bridge between existing industry and a low-carbon future. The picture becomes less simple, however, when the energy needed for capture, transport, and storage is considered. If that energy comes from carbon-intensive sources, some of the climate benefit is lost. Moreover, installing capture equipment does not make the original industrial process emission-free; it changes the amount and destination of its emissions. Thus, the value of the technology depends partly on the wider energy system in which it operates.

A more ambitious strategy is to remove carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere. This may sound like reversing pollution after the damage has been done, but the idea has a specific purpose. Even if electricity becomes much cleaner, some sectors may continue producing residual emissions that are technically difficult or extremely costly to prevent. Removing a comparable amount of carbon from the air could help balance such emissions. Yet atmospheric carbon dioxide is widely dispersed, so collecting it generally requires substantial energy and equipment. The question, therefore, is not simply whether removal works, but where using limited clean energy for removal makes more sense than using that same energy to prevent emissions elsewhere.

This comparison reveals a problem that is easily hidden by the phrase “carbon reduction technology.” Technologies that prevent emissions, capture them at a source, and remove carbon from the atmosphere are often discussed as if they performed the same task. They do not. Preventing a unit of carbon from being released avoids adding it to the atmosphere; capturing carbon attempts to intercept a release; removal deals with carbon after it has entered the atmosphere. These differences matter because resources are limited. Money, electricity, land, and skilled workers devoted to one method cannot simultaneously be devoted to another, so technological choices involve opportunity costs as well as engineering performance.

This does not mean that carbon removal should be reserved for some distant future. Developing it early may be valuable because societies need time to learn how technologies perform outside controlled settings and how their environmental effects can be monitored. Still, its strongest role may be in situations where direct reductions remain exceptionally difficult, rather than as a substitute for reductions that are already practical. A technology can be successful in a laboratory and still be poorly used if it is applied to an easy problem while a harder one remains unsolved. Judging success therefore requires asking not only whether carbon is reduced, but what alternative use of resources has been displaced.

The most serious risk may arise not from a technology failing, but from expecting too much of it. If people assume that future machines will remove large quantities of carbon, they may feel less pressure to reduce emissions today. Such confidence could turn a useful tool into an excuse for delay. On the other hand, rejecting removal because it might be misused would ignore the emissions that may remain after feasible reductions have been made. The sensible question is therefore neither whether carbon-removal technology is good nor whether conventional reduction is enough. It is how different methods can be assigned to the problems they are best suited to solve, while ensuring that promises about tomorrow do not weaken actions that are possible today.

Q1. What does the passage suggest about carbon capture technology?

1. It removes the need to change existing industrial energy systems.
2. It prevents nearly all emissions produced by equipped industrial facilities.
3. Its climate value depends partly on the energy supporting it.
4. Its effectiveness increases whenever captured carbon is stored underground.

Q2. What does the passage suggest about the role of carbon removal?

1. It should mainly replace methods that prevent emissions at source.
2. It is most useful when laboratory performance is already impressive.
3. It becomes unnecessary once low-carbon electricity is widely available.
4. It is especially valuable where direct reductions remain exceptionally difficult.

Q3. Which statement is NOT supported by the passage?

1. Future carbon removal can justify postponing feasible emission cuts today.
2. Atmospheric removal may help balance emissions that remain difficult to prevent.
3. Some activities remain difficult to operate without producing greenhouse gases.
4. Expectations about future removal may weaken present pressure for reductions.