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CDR2030 sets a near-term global implementation target for carbon dioxide removal: 3 billion tonnes per year of conventional CDR, and 100 million tonnes per year of novel CDR by 2030.
The target is not a forecast. It is an organizing milestone — close enough to shape decisions now, and ambitious enough to push carbon removal toward the policy, market, infrastructure, and deployment conditions needed for climate-relevant scale.
Since its 2018 Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C, and most recently in its 6th Assessment Report (2023), the IPCC has consistently concluded that carbon dioxide removal will be needed alongside rapid emissions reductions to reach net zero and counterbalance hard-to-abate residual emissions. But knowing what is needed by mid-century is not the same as building the conditions to get there.
That is why CDR2030 focuses on this decade. The mid-century need is the destination, but 2030 is the implementation test. If carbon removal is going to become a real pillar of climate action alongside mitigation and adaptation, the world needs a milestone close enough to shape choices now — and large enough to bend the curve.
CDR2030 sets a global implementation target for 2030: 3 billion tonnes per year of conventional carbon dioxide removal, and 100 million tonnes per year of novel carbon dioxide removal.
These numbers are not presented as a perfect forecast of what the world will need in 2030. They are a practical waypoint: ambitious enough to push carbon removal toward the threshold where large-scale deployment becomes possible, but concrete enough for governments, companies, investors, and project developers to organize around.
The target combines two categories of CDR that begin from very different starting points. Conventional removals already operate at large scale and can deliver near-term climate, ecosystem, and community benefits. Novel removals are much earlier in deployment, but are essential for building the durable carbon removal capacity needed over time.
CDR2030 sets a near-term benchmark for scaling carbon removal this decade: 3 Gt of conventional CDR and 100 Mt of novel CDR by 2030. Expand the info boxes for more details on what each category entails.
The CDR2030 target is not a new modeling exercise. It builds from major 2030 carbon removal benchmarks advanced earlier this decade by leading climate and energy institutions.
These sources come from different parts of the climate ecosystem: the CEM-MI Carbon Dioxide Removal Mission, a multipgovernment-led initiative focused on clean energy innovation; the Climate High-Level Champions, who mobilize non-state actors under the UN climate process; and the Energy Transitions Commission, a government, research and industry coalition focused on pathways to a net-zero economy.
Their targets differ in scope and assumptions. But together, they point to the same conclusion: carbon removal is not only a mid-century modeling requirement. It is a near-term implementation challenge.
These earlier 2030 benchmarks differ in scope and ambition, but together they helped shape CDR2030’s focus on near-term implementation, conventional scale, and a distinct milestone for novel CDR.
Carbon removal cannot scale sufficiently or responsibly through dependence on only one category of removal. Conventional CDR can deliver large volumes now, while supporting ecosystems, soils, water systems, land restoration, and communities. But land-based removals also face limits related to permanence, reversal risk, land availability, saturation, measurement uncertainty, and climate impacts.
Novel CDR is much earlier in deployment, but it is essential for building the durable removal capacity the world will need over time. IPCC mitigation pathways that limit warming to 1.5°C or 2°C generally show a growing role for engineered and other highly durable removals after mid-century, as land-based options face constraints related to land availability, saturation, permanence, and competing demands on ecosystems. In most scenarios, novel CDR expands substantially after 2050 and becomes an increasingly dominant share of total removals by 2100.
But that future capacity will not emerge automatically. Costs must fall, performance must improve, accounting methodologies and regulatory standing must be established, and monitoring and storage systems must mature. Achieving that requires deployment and learning today.
Waiting until conventional approaches reach their limits would leave too little time to develop the durable removal capacity that future climate goals are expected to require. The strongest carbon removal strategy is not conventional or novel. It is a portfolio that integrates both: using conventional CDR for near-term scale and wider ecological benefits, while accelerating novel CDR toward durability, diversification, and long-term capacity.
The CDR2030 target embodies that portfolio logic. It recognizes the gigatonne-scale role conventional removals already play, while setting a much more transformational challenge for novel removals: moving from a tiny base today toward 100 million tonnes per year by 2030.
Conventional and novel CDR solve different parts of the scale challenge. The 2030 target integrates both into one portfolio.
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The world is not starting from zero. According to The State of Carbon Dioxide Removal, 2nd Edition (2024), around 2.2 GtCO₂ per year of carbon removal is taking place today. Almost all of it comes from conventional land-based methods, especially afforestation, reforestation, and forest management. [State of CDR 2024]Novel CDR remains at a much earlier stage.
The same assessment estimates that novel methods currently remove only about 1.3 million tonnes of CO₂ per year — less than 0.1% of total current removals. That imbalance matters. Today’s carbon removal base is large in one sense, but narrow in another: it is overwhelmingly concentrated in conventional methods, while Paris-aligned pathways require a larger, more durable, and more diversified portfolio over time.
The Report finds that more sustainable Paris-consistent scenarios require roughly 7–9 GtCO₂ per year of CDR by 2050. The challenge is therefore twofold: protect, improve, and responsibly expand the conventional CDR base that already exists, while rapidly accelerating novel CDR from a tiny starting point toward meaningful deployment.That is why the 2030 target matters. It shows the gap between where carbon removal stands today and the level of progress needed this decade to make mid-century scale more plausible.
Current carbon removal is almost entirely conventional, while Paris-aligned pathways require much larger total removals and a growing share of novel CDR by mid-century and beyond.
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* Source: 2024 estimate from The State of Carbon Dioxide Removal 2024 – 2nd Edition: current CDR is approximately 2–2.2 GtCO₂/yr, almost entirely conventional; novel CDR contributes about 1.3 MtCO₂/yr.
** Source: 2050 midpoint based on the State of CDR 2024 “more sustainable” Paris-consistent scenario range of 7–9 GtCO₂/yr.
*** Source: Based on long-term Paris-aligned scenarios assessed in The State of Carbon Dioxide Removal 2024, which show CDR needs rising through the century and reaching around 20 GtCO₂/yr by 2100 in high-need pathways. IPCC AR6 WGIII Chapter 12 shows that CDR becomes a major long-term feature of Paris-aligned mitigation pathways, with median 2100 deployment across BECCS, AFOLU removals, and DACCS totaling roughly 14 GtCO₂/yr in scenarios limiting warming to 2°C or lower. Other synthesis sources commonly summarize long-term CDR needs as roughly 20 GtCO₂/yr by 2100.
CDR2030 exists because carbon removal will not reach climate-relevant scale on its current trajectory. The gap is not only numerical. It is structural. To reach the 2030 Implementation Target, the world has to build the conditions that make later scale possible: more projects financed, more suppliers built, clearer policy support, stronger demand signals, better monitoring and verification, lower costs, stronger standards, and faster learning across the field.Carbon removal will not become large all at once.
New methods have to move through stages: pilots, demonstrations, first commercial projects, repeatable deployment models, infrastructure buildout, and eventually mass replication. That process takes time, which is why deployment and learning have to accelerate now. No single actor can bend the curve alone.
Governments can set rules, fund demonstrations, create demand, and build durable policy frameworks. Companies can purchase removals, invest in suppliers, and help create early markets. Researchers can improve technologies and measurement. Financial institutions can develop models for project finance. Communities can shape whether projects are trusted, accepted, and locally beneficial.
The purpose of CDR2030 is to make those pieces move together. Reaching the 2030 target would not mean the job is done. It would mean carbon removal has crossed an important threshold: from scattered early deployment toward a stronger foundation for the much larger scale needed after 2030. That is what it means to bend the curve — not simply to remove more carbon by 2030, but to change the rate at which carbon removal can grow beyond it.
The State of CDR Report (ed. 3) projects that roughly 7 MtCO₂ per year of novel CDR, will be in enabled by 2030, based on current conditions. CDR2030 aims for 100 MtCO₂. Exceeding projections will require actions that not only replicate current drivers, but also introduce novel models, policies, and approaches.
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* Source: The State of Carbon Dioxide Removal 2024 — 2nd Edition. Novel CDR deployment is shown as roughly 1.3 MtCO₂/yr.
** Source: The State of Carbon Dioxide Removal — 3rd Edition, forthcoming 2026. Current conditions are projected to enable roughly 7 MtCO₂/yr of novel CDR by 2030. The 100 MtCO₂ figure is the CDR2030 target.