Why Kenya could take the lead in carbon removal

East Africa’sDAC Rift Valley, which runs for thousands of kilometres from the Red Sea to Mozambique, provides a unique window into the evolutionary history of humanity. The shifting of tectonic plates that formed its deep lakes and sheltered canyons created conditions that first nurtured the ancestors of modern humans and then preserved their bones. Those geological forces may also push open a door to the future by making it possible to capture and store global-warming carbon dioxide cheaply from the air.That, at least, is the hope of James Irungu Mwangi, a Kenyan environmentalist and development expert, who talks of the opportunity that could be afforded by what he calls “the Great Carbon Valley”. The rift, he argues, has the key attributes that make it attractive for “direct air capture” () stations to suck carbon dioxide from the air: renewable-energy potential and the right geology for storing carbon.