World leaders have been gathering each year for nearly 30 years to confront a defining challenge of our generation: climate change. A large focus of previous climate negotiations has rightfully been placed on finding ways to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2). As heads of state convene in Egypt for the UN climate summit COP27, carbon removal is rising in prominence on the international stage as a crucial pillar of climate action.
Because of the delay in mitigating greenhouse gas emissions, scientists say we need to remove gigatons of CO2 that’s already lodged in the atmosphere by 2030, in tandem with the crucial work of mitigation. All approaches to managing carbon should be on the international and national policy tables to keep the Paris Agreement on track and fuel the innovation that will be required for gigaton-scale impact. This innovation can be accelerated by policies that keep a level playing field for the variety of ways to remove and manage CO2.
There are multiple approaches to remove the carbon from the atmosphere: locking the carbon in trees or seaweed through photosynthesis, binding CO2 to rocks through mineralization, transforming the carbon in biomass into biochar, filtering carbon from the air through Direct Air Capture technology, and more. Once removed from the atmosphere, the CO2 can be locked away in a variety of locations, including underground through geologic storage or deep in the ocean. The CO2 can also be utilized or recycled and this is happening today in everything from industrial products like jet fuel to consumer products like diamonds.
In the same way that a diverse financial portfolio is often advised to keep retirement savings on track, a diverse carbon removal portfolio hedges against uncertainty. In the process, it also encourages innovation across multiple forms of carbon management. Many corporate and government climate leaders are applying this portfolio framework, investing in several approaches to remove, store, utilize and manage CO2 to hit net-zero and net-negative climate targets. As this portfolio approach to carbon management highlights, it’s too early in the growth of the industry to pick winners and losers.
This portfolio approach aligns with tech-neutral government policies, which are also fueling innovation. The CHIPS and Science Act, passed through Congress with bipartisan support and signed into law by President Biden this year, allocates $1 billion to carbon removal research, development and deployment (RD&D) and doubles the Energy Department’s current budget for RD&D. Policies like the CHIPS Act level the playing field for carbon removal with a competitive application process and in the spirit of RD&D, there is not a foregone conclusion about which research project might yield the greatest impact.
Tech-neutral government signals like the CHIPS Act and the Energy Department’s Carbon Negative Shot initiative are fueling private sector innovation. This year saw a record-breaking number of investments in carbon management startups, with $882 million invested from venture capitalists in the second quarter alone. With the multitude of carbon management approaches, each one presents a unique series of benefits and trade-offs, including location where community benefits are realized, the cost per ton of removal, and the land area required. The length of duration for carbon removal varies significantly by approach, from decades to hundreds of thousands of years.
Even with some differences, many carbon management companies are collaborating because of how complementary the various approaches can be. There are universals across all forms of carbon removal, including the benefits of measurement, reporting and verification to confirm that it is happening with efficacy. All forms of carbon management benefit from responsible deployment, including community engagement where projects are being developed.
The UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, the UN entity charged with convening COP27, issued a call for public input on carbon removal ahead of the international climate conference in November. Requests like these are a way for policymakers to engage with stakeholders and invite feedback. As the responses highlight, there are a multitude of opinions about different forms of carbon management. But with each approach offering unique benefits, it’s the sum total of these pathways that has the most potential to achieve a gigaton-scale impact.
As governments develop carbon management policies, enshrining a tech-neutral approach incentivizes market innovation, scales solutions and lowers costs. It is premature in this innovative age of carbon management to adopt singular policies that prioritize one solution over another, based on any one variable like cost per ton of removal or length of permanence. With gigatons of CO2 to remove and manage, we benefit from pursuing all pathways to reach this target in global and domestic policies.
Ben Rubin is the executive director and co-founder of the Carbon Business Council, a technology-neutral trade association of more than 70 companies unified to restore the climate.