Carbon removals not growing fast enough for climate goals

The carbon removal industry is set to a hit a major milestone this year — that of removing 1 million tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere — but its pace of growth is not nearly enough to play any meaningful role in climate goals, according to an analysis by New Scientist.

The report cited experts as saying that the industry was far from the scale it needed to remove the required 100 to 1000 gigatonnes of climate-warming CO2 from the atmosphere, despite making several technological advances. Its current pace was equivalent to removing just 13 minutes worth of CO2 out of a full year of emissions, one expert told the magazine.

Among the biggest challenges facing the industry was a lack of demand, with technology giant Microsoft being the sole buyer of more than 90% of all carbon removals sold this year. An increasingly uncertain policy atmosphere — owing primarily to the Donald Trump-led US government’s moves to roll back climate action — is also now weighing on the industry, experts told the magazine.

Some carbon industry experts that spoke to NS were still hopeful, meanwhile, stressing that the industry was now shifting from the “startup phase” to “delivery phase”. Policies that offer incentives for carbon removals, or a concentrated effort by global governments to make it mandatory could still speed up the adoption of carbon removal, they said.

The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) describes carbon dioxide removal (CDR) as those intentional practices and technologies that aim to remove CO2 from the air and store it durably for hundreds of years.

Popular CDR technologies include biochar — a charcoal-like substance made by burning agricultural and forestry waste; direct air carbon capture and storage (DACCS); and enhanced rock weathering — a method involving spreading tonnes of rock dust on farmland.

The IPCC has said that CO2 removal will be necessary to reach global climate goals.

Read the full report: New Scientist

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