Shipping is looking to methanol as the most likely future fuel for their vessels. Existing cars can be converted to run on methanol fairly cheaply and easily; the main issue tends to be cold weather starting. It's probably the most realistic way of reducing our carbon emissions, since both the hydrogen and carbon feedstock for methanol can be made carbon free (or even negative, depending on how you do it), the production process is already in place on an industrial scale, and it doesn't require everyone to fork out for a completely new vehicle.

Releasing carbon into the atmosphere is fine as long as in aggregate your fuel production doesn't use all of the carbon you pull from the atmosphere. When you do that, you're still carbon negative as long as what's left over doesn't oxidize. There are also a number of untapped sources for carbon. Sewerage, for example, contains carbon that was pulled from the atmosphere by a plant. Rather than letting it convert to methane, you can convert some of the carbon to methanol, and sequester the rest, effectively letting the carbon cycle work for you.