In Iceland, can a revolutionary new process actually help stop global warming?

Our planet is changing. So is our journalism. This story is part of a CBC News initiative entitled Our Changing Planet to show and explain the effects of climate change and what is being done about it.

The blackened lava fields and billowing steam vents of an active volcano near Reykjavik, Iceland, are the backdrop for a new venture that could help change the global calculation on climate change.

The facility, known as Orca, captures CO2 right out of the air — essentially scrubbing the atmosphere of harmful greenhouse gases.

"Like, imagine when we started, 14 years ago, there was absolutely no support for what we were doing," said Christoph Gebald, 38, a German-born engineer who's now based in Zurich, Switzerland.

"I'm very excited about where we are."

Gebald's company, Climeworks, which he co-founded, has emerged as one of the early leaders in a technology known as direct air capture.  

The plant in Iceland is the largest of its kind in the world.

Scientists have known for decades how to take CO2 out of the air, but applying the technology on a large scale and in a way that makes economic sense has been elusive.     

With the COP26 climate summit poised to begin Sunday in Glasgow, Scotland, and the world searching for solutions to de-carbonize faster, there's been a spike in interest in how new technologies can help get there.

The Conference of Parties (COP), as it's known, meets every year and is the global decision-making body set up to implement the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, adopted in the early 1990s, and subsequent climate agreements.

Climeworks is now among more than a dozen companies around the globe — including some in Canada — blazing a new and, for some, controversial trail by attempting to capture dispersed greenhouse gases to counter the effects of climate change.   

Detractors suggest carbon capturing technology is expensive and its impact on lowering atmospheric CO2 questionable. 

In July, hundreds of Canadian and American environmentalists joined forces to call on governments to stop investing in carbon capture, arguing it takes the focus off reducing emissions, which should be the prime directive of climate mitigation efforts.

However, their fight appeared to be aimed largely at the oil, gas and coal industries and their investments to capture and sequester pollutants coming out of the stack.