Researchers develop idea of resurfacing urban areas to offset CO2 emissions

In a study published in the Institute of Physics's Publishing’s journal Environmental Research Letters, researchers from Concordia University created this scenario to see what effect a global increase in surface reflectance would have on global temperature and our own carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. They estimate that increasing the reflectance -- commonly known as albedo -- of every urban area by 0.1 will give a CO2 offset between 130 and 150 billion tonnes. This is equivalent to taking every car in the world off the road for 50 years, assuming a single car gives off around 4 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. Researchers have long proposed that changing the albedo of a surface could be an effective way of reducing CO2 emissions. A change could effectively cool buildings that would usually retain heat and therefore reduce the use of air-conditioning systems; it could also improve outdoor air quality and offset the warming that the world is currently experiencing.