WEATHER AS A REASON FOR BUSINESS

Two-thirds of the Earth's landmass is in the northern hemisphere, and land warms faster than water, making northern summer the hottest time of year for the planet as a whole. But the highest temperatures tend to occur late in the season. The fact that the hot period began so early this year, temperatures rose so high and it lasted so long is unprecedented. The same thing happens in the oceans. Since March 13, sea surface temperatures in low and mid-latitudes have been warmer than on the same day in any year since 1979.

Amid rising global averages, some places are seeing alarming peaks. On July 16, the Turpan Basin region in Xinjiang, sometimes called China's Death Valley, recorded a maximum of 52.2°C. In America, in Death Valley itself, a peak of 53.9°C was observed on the same day.

More worrying than isolated temperature peaks in deserts, however, is the dangerous rise in temperatures in places where hundreds of millions of people live. On July 6, after the city recorded its highest July temperature on record, Beijing authorities declared a second red alert in two weeks. July 19 marked the 19th consecutive day that temperatures in Phoenix, Arizona exceeded 43°C. Italy and many European countries are experiencing the same unprecedented heat wave, with temperatures exceeding 40°C.

When asked how this can be, a climatologist will answer you dryly: “I think it’s all due to the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.” The increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere causes more of the sun's heat to be trapped near the surface and absorbed by the oceans. Levels of carbon dioxide, the most important long-lived greenhouse gas measured at Mauna Loa, a mountain peak in Hawaii, reached 424 parts per million in May, the highest level in more than 3 million years. Methane and nitrous oxide, two other long-lived greenhouse gases, also reached levels never before seen in human history. The world is now on average about 1.2°C warmer than since the start of the Industrial Revolution.

All this is drawing the attention of entrepreneurs to technological areas that can solve the problem of global warming. While most sectors of the venture capital market have seen funding decline in recent quarters, companies focused on carbon capture and storage are a notable exception.

Last year, startups working on technologies to reduce industrial carbon emissions, store captured CO2 and manage complex carbon credit systems received more than half a billion dollars in investment.

Early July CarbonCure Technologies , announced it has raised $80 million. The company is working on technologies in the field of building materials, in particular the concrete industry, that reduce the production of carbon dioxide during the construction and operation of buildings. The company's mission is to make its concrete technology the standard for concrete production. By realizing the full potential of CarbonCure's portfolio of carbon recovery technologies, it expects to achieve its target of reducing carbon emissions by 500 million tonnes annually, the equivalent of taking 100 million cars off the road.

At the beginning of June the company Charm Industrial , a San Francisco startup, has raised $100 million. The company uses plants to capture CO₂ from the atmosphere. Using the technology she developed, biomass (agricultural waste) is converted into a stable, carbon-rich liquid, which is then injected deep underground. This permanently removes CO₂ from the atmosphere, out of reach of wildfires, soil erosion and land use changes.

Company Supercritical , a London-based carbon offset market operator, also raised $13 million in funding in June. Supercritical's carbon accounting software allows businesses to measure their carbon footprint and create a plan to achieve net-zero emissions.

Svante , a Canadian company that makes filters and machines to capture and remove CO2 from industrial emissions, has raised more than $470 million to date.

Plantd , a North Carolina-based company, makes building panels that are made from fast-growing perennial grass that absorbs more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as it grows than when it was produced. The panels produced by the company are intended for wall cladding and roof covering.

Company Captura , removes carbon from the atmosphere by tapping into the world's largest natural CO2 sink, the ocean. With minimal environmental impact and using only renewable electricity and seawater, the electrodialysis process generates a stream of measurable CO2, which can then be permanently and safely stored or used to produce low-carbon products.

Below is a list of companies actively developing and implementing technologies in this area. To date, the companies on this list have raised more than $1.25 billion in equity capital.

Source: www.crunchbase.com

Thus, companies that innovate in the areas of infrastructure, software and materials that solve the problem of reducing CO2 in the atmosphere are able to successfully attract investment.

This spring, measured CO2 levels rose further to an area not seen in millions of years, according to a June report from scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Scripps Institution of Oceanography. CO2 levels are now more than 50% higher than they were before the start of the industrial era.

Of course, no one expects 50 or even 100 startups to return us to pre-industrial carbon emissions. However, from the point of view of business development directions, a stable trend is visible in this area.

The companies on the list are divided into several categories:

First category are companies that are innovating in software platforms for carbon credit markets and carbon footprint measurement tools for businesses.

Second category startups are developing processes to manage carbon emissions with the goal of reducing them and achieving carbon neutrality.

Third group companies are implementing processes for extracting CO2 from the atmosphere.