How much CO2 must be removed to meet climate goals?

June 5 () –

It will be necessary to remove between 7,000 and 9,000 million tons of CO2 per year from the atmosphere by mid-century if the world wants meet the 1.5°C target of the Paris Agreement.

The authors of the State of Carbon Dioxide Removal 2024 report, presented this Wednesday, emphasize that reducing emissions is the main way to achieve the goal of net zero emissions, but carbon dioxide removal has a critical role to play.

The authors incorporated sustainability criteria, including several Sustainable Development Goals, into their analysis, and their final figure for a “Paris-compliant” Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) range was evaluated against them. .

At the moment, the CDR eliminates only 2 billion tons per year, mainly through conventional methods such as tree planting. New CDR methods, such as biochar, enhanced rock weathering, direct airborne carbon capture and storage (DACCS), and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), contribute 1.3 million tons per year, less than 0.1% of the total. The methods that are effectively permanent represent only 0.6 million tons per year, less than 0.05% of the total.

A wide range of CDR methods must be rapidly scaled up to address climate change in line with the Paris Agreement, the authors say. CDR has seen rapid growth in research, public awareness, and startups. However, There are now signs of a slowdown in development across multiple indicators.

While investment in CDR research and startups is going into an increasing variety of novel methods, few of these methods are currently in the crosshairs of government policies and proposals to scale up CDR, which represents only the 1.1% of investment in climate technology startups. “With the world falling far short of the decarbonization needed to meet the Paris temperature target, this demonstrates the need to increase investment in CDR as well as zero-emissions solutions across the board,” he says. it’s a statement Dr Steve Smith from the Smith School of Business and Environment, University of Oxford, who participated in the study.

The report notes that CDR companies have high ambitions that, together, would bring CDR to levels compatible with meeting the Paris Agreement temperature target. However, the authors say these ambitions have little basis to be credible today. and they depend on a much stronger set of policies than those that currently exist.

The report urges governments to implement policies that increase demand for carbon removal. These should include incorporating CDR policies into countries’ Nationally Determined Contributions (climate action plans under the UNFCCC) and developing better monitoring, reporting and verification systems for CDR. Currently, much of the demand for CDR comes from voluntary commitments by companies to purchase carbon removal credits.

The annual report on the status of carbon dioxide removal is a joint effort of more than 50 international experts. It is the world’s leading scientific assessment of how much carbon dioxide will need to be removed to limit climate change and whether or not the world is on track to achieve it.