Carbon Dioxide Removal
Last updated in October 2024.
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Executive summary
What is carbon dioxide removal? Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is an umbrella term used to describe a suite of interventions that have the potential to pull carbon dioxide (CO2) directly from the atmosphere and store it for varying lengths of time within other carbon pools, such as rocks, soils, trees, oceans, and manmade materials.
How is CDR contextualized within climate strategies? CDR targets CO2 already in the atmosphere without addressing the sources of emissions. While it is not a substitute for emissions reductions, it is widely viewed as a critical part of the larger carbon management portfolio needed to reach midcentury net-zero targets, potentially address temperature overshoot, and rebalance atmospheric concentrations of CO2.
What are the potential co-benefits and associated risks of scaling CDR? CDR deployment could potentially have ecological, social, and economic co-benefits. Associated risks include moral hazard; co-option by extractive industries; fraud and failure; energy, land, and resource demands; and negative ecological impacts.
What are the major challenges to scaling CDR? Major challenges to scaling CDR include knowledge and technology gaps; land, energy, and resource constraints; lack of a social license to operate; high cost; and limited demand.
What strategies are nonprofits developing to address these challenges? Nonprofits are employing a broad range of strategies to address the challenges facing scaling CDR. We think that strategies to increase demand through innovative policies could be effective: it may be highly feasible to scale CDR demand through a broad portfolio of different policy vehicles, globally and at every level of government, into which CDR demand can be embedded. A portfolio approach may also unlock contexts in which economic and ecological co-benefits are more directly valued.
Is there room for more philanthropic funding? Given the broad consensus that policy will generate longer-term demand for CDR, the nascency of policy efforts critical to achieving the requisite scale to meet climate goals, and the important role that nonprofits play in influencing these policies, we think it is important to grow philanthropic support for CDR.
Key uncertainties: Key uncertainties include the size of CDR demand from companies choosing to purchase CDR, the feasibility of large-scale government procurement, and the magnitude of potential CDR demand creation from innovative policy approaches.
Bottom line / next steps: In 2024, the Giving Green Fund is planning to award a series of ecosystem grants aligned with a strategy of supporting foundational work to unlock innovative policy for CDR demand. Sub-strategies of focus include (i) supporting policy innovation to embed CDR into alternative policy frameworks across sectors; (ii) developing standards to match the needs and opportunities of a broad and diverse array of policy vehicles; and (iii) enabling community-driven projects and subnational policies as testbeds for novel contexts, applications, policies, and markets.