On the climate side, unfortunately no magic way to remove CO2 and therefore 'clean up' the atmosphere will ever be viable in the whole picture. This is due to thermodynamics and economics, or: We burn carbon to gain energy. We chose to burn carbon for this because it is cheap and carbon is plentiful in accessible deposits. I could of course insist on only burning 1000 year old oak wood to heat my home, or propell my car. But that will be very expensive and seen as a folly. See how there's scientific and therefore economical reasons to burn carbon into the atmosphere?

Now, in order to remove it in some kind of chemical process, logically we will need to invest energy. If it was a self-driven process, then carbon would flake out of the atmosphere all the time on it's own. Where is that energy coming from? Well, the cheapest source is burning carbon...

Of course, we could invest solar or nuclear energy. But then we use a dearer resource to clean up the use of a cheap resource. It can work that e.g. the US says they do this, while India burns more carbon then. But, as I said, in the big picture the whole construct is not worth it and runs at a loss. Except if it is split like this the US loses and India gains, which explains the zero-achievements in all things climate protection related.

Now, if they say solar panels are becoming cheaper than coal, perhaps we can in the future with clean panels clean up the mistake of the past of burning coal? Perhaps. But I hope the panels will give enough electricity to remove more carbon than was blasted into the atmosphere during the entire process of making them, everything included. If they do or will, I don't know.