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To scale carbon dioxide removal from isolated pilots to million-ton deployments, we must embed it into the industrial systems, value chains, and investment decisions already shaping the global economy.
How are we going to achieve the staggering amounts of CDR – several billion tonnes per year – that will be needed by midcentury to both reach net zero emissions and avoid the worst impacts from overshoot?
This is a highly consequential question. Deployment of billions of tonnes of CDR will be a massive engineering and resource challenge, requiring industrial-scale expertise and infrastructure. While the essential inputs to CDR processes, including rocks and minerals, waste biomass, water, and low-carbon energy, are globally abundant, challenges in accessing and processing these resources at scale will constrain deployable volumes and limit our capacity to clean up the atmosphere before we cross crucial climate thresholds.
Currently, volumes of conventional CDR, primarily reforestation, are limited to 2-3 Gt, and the capacity of novel forms of CDR, including BECCS, DAC, biochar, enhanced mineralization and weathering, and more, stands at only a few million tons per year. Leveraging existing industrial infrastructure, wastes, processes and value chains will be necessary to address both sustainability constraints alongside logistical challenges.
Innovation in CDR has surged over the last several years, and we are seeing win-win-win scenarios emerge. There are CDR projects reducing waste brines, an environmental hazard, to recover additional fresh water and minerals that can be valorized. Other CDR projects are piloting technology that reduces legacy mine wastes to produce phosphoric acid for use in fertilizer and battery production. And still other projects are increasing the limited storage options for biological wastes that may otherwise contaminate soils and groundwater.
These solutions address both operational and environmental challenges for their host industries, while also removing excess CO2 from the atmosphere.
While these early explorations are promising, the urgency of the climate crisis, coupled with extended timelines for industrial-scale deployment, necessitates more immediate progress across a broader range of players.
Many heavy industrial companies remain unaware of recent advances in CDR technologies, their direct relevance to industrial value and process chains, or the potential opportunities for unlocking commercial benefits.
Further, current policies do not incentivize including CDR. Confusion and uncertainty around carbon pricing, future regulation, or product sustainability guidelines can lead to inaction.
Sustainability teams need to know that on-site CDR is a viable option, engineers need the technical resources to evaluate integration pathways, and executives need a credible business case to justify moving forward with projects. We need to make sure these needs are met, so that all stakeholders can move forward with confidence.
The next four to five years will be critical if we want decisions being made now about industrial strategy, capital allocation, and even regulatory frameworks, to include forward-looking opportunities to safely and productively integrate CDR by 2030.
Successfully addressing uncertainties around technology readiness, carbon accounting and carbon pricing, and regulatory regimes will determine whether CDR remains a niche activity or becomes a normalized component of the global industrial economy, and hence a meaningful climate solution.
The path forward is clear enough to act on now. We can accelerate progress by identifying and publicizing integration pathways across key sectors, so that the proof-points already emerging become a blueprint others can follow.
We can remove carbon accounting barriers so that companies will have the necessary confidence that their CDR activities will be recognized and rewarded. We can also foster cross-sector collaboration and knowledge exchange - turning isolated pilots into a coordinated industrial movement.
The window to embed CDR into the decisions being made right now — about capital, strategy, and infrastructure — is open. The question is whether we move deliberately enough to use it.
