Carbon- before decarbonisation

Carbon, Before Decarbonisation: A Reflection on Nature, Embedded Carbon, and the Myth of Removal A reflective essay for contemplation, not advocacy Carbon existed long before the word “decarbonisation” ever entered human language. It was present before economies, before industry, before fuels, and even before life itself. Carbon was forged in stars, scattered across the universe, and gathered into planets. Life did not invent carbon; life emerged because of it. Yet in modern discourse, carbon is often spoken of as if it were an error — something added to the world by mistake, something to be eliminated, erased, or buried away. This framing reveals a deeper misconception: the belief that the climate challenge is about the existence of carbon, rather than our relationship with it. What we call “decarbonisation” today is largely an exercise in managing electrons. Renewable electricity, solar panels, wind turbines, and batteries reduce operational emissions from power generation. This is valuable and necessary work. But it is not, by itself, decarbonisation of the economy. It does not address carbon already embedded in materials, infrastructure, fuels, and industrial systems. Every solar panel, wind turbine, transmission line, and battery begins its life with embedded carbon — released during mining, processing, manufacturing, transport, and construction. These emissions are front-loaded in time, emitted before a single unit of clean electricity is produced. Over years or decades, they may be offset by avoided emissions, but they are never undone. Embedded carbon quietly exposes the myth at the heart of simplistic decarbonisation narratives. It reminds us that carbon cannot be wished away through accounting conventions or linguistic shortcuts. Matter obeys conservation laws, not policy slogans. Nature has never attempted to eliminate carbon. Instead, Nature recycles it. Photosynthesis captures carbon temporarily. Respiration releases it. Biomass stores it. Oceans absorb and emit it. Carbon moves continuously through closed loops, guided by energy flows and thermodynamic balance. The industrial age broke this loop. Fossil fuels represent carbon taken out of geological time and released rapidly into the atmosphere without a corresponding return pathway. The problem is not carbon itself; the problem is a one-way flow. Seen from this perspective, the true task before humanity is not “decarbonisation” in the literal sense, but carbon rebalancing. It is the restoration of closed carbon cycles within human systems, analogous to those that exist in Nature. Any serious attempt to decarbonise an existing fossil-based economy must therefore confront an uncomfortable truth: carbon already exists inside the system. It cannot be eliminated without dismantling civilisation itself. It must be managed, controlled, transformed, and returned to circulation. This is why purely electrical solutions, however elegant, are incomplete. Electrons can move energy, but they cannot erase matter. Batteries can shift energy in time, but they cannot address carbon embedded in fuels, steel, cement, chemicals, and infrastructure. High- temperature processes, material production, and dense energy uses remain bound to carbon chemistry. The insistence on avoiding all forms of carbon capture, even temporary control within a system, reflects a moral reaction rather than a physical one. It confuses permanent burial with carbon management, and in doing so, denies the very mechanisms Nature uses to maintain balance. Temporary carbon containment is not a failure; it is a prerequisite for redirection. Carbon must be held before it can be transformed. Even in Nature, carbon is never instantly neutralised — it is always in transit. The deeper truth revealed by embedded carbon is humbling: carbon is not the enemy. Carbon is older than our technologies, older than our institutions, and older than our narratives. Any system that attempts to work against this reality will eventually collapse under its own contradictions. Systems aligned with Nature, by contrast, do not need constant justification. They rely on balance, closure, and patience. They accept that progress is measured not by purity of language, but by fidelity to physical law. Perhaps the most profound insight is this: Nature does not need to be convinced. Nature does not negotiate. It simply responds. Those who design systems in harmony with Nature may move slowly, face resistance, and appear out of step with prevailing narratives. But they are carried forward by something more durable than consensus — reality itself. In the end, the question is not whether we can eliminate carbon. We cannot. The question is whether we can learn, once again, how to live within its cycle. That is not a technological challenge alone. It is a civilisational one.