A groundbreaking study finds that many countries relying heavily on carbon removals are at high risk of placing their climate goals in jeopardy. This echoes findings from previous Carbon Market Watch research and is helping guide future investigations.
The assessment, led by researchers from the University of Oxford, looks into 71 countries’ near and long-term plans to address climate change and their dependence on novel and conventional carbon removals. The reviewed states included major emitters such as China, India, the United States, and EU countries, as well as countries responsible for a smaller share of emissions, such as Fiji, Georgia, and Nepal, representing a broad cross-section of global economies.
Together, the analysed strategies cover over three-quarters of global emissions. The researchers examined to what extent these countries plan to rely on ‘conventional’ removals (like planting forests), ‘novel’ removals (such as bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, or direct air capture and storage), and international cooperation through carbon trading or storage abroad.
The team analysed countries’ climate pledges and their long-term strategies for reducing emissions, looking at submissions made to the UNFCCC up until May 2024. If these plans do not materialise as expected, countries’ climate goals and the Paris temperature limits could be pushed out of reach.
Risky business
The findings clearly suggest a mismatch between the extent to which countries plan to use envisaged permanent removals and natural sequestration, and the current uncertainties and resulting risks voiced by academia (some of which are even acknowledged in states’ plans, but often not addressed).
Highlighting equity concerns, uncertainty of future technological development, and the vulnerability of land sinks, among other issues, the authors see the need for countries to shift the focus to rapid emission reductions to limit the dependence on removals and refer to measures enabling healthier consumption patterns as one promising option.
The issues raised in the paper align strongly with the work of Carbon Market Watch on prioritising deep and rapid emissions cuts rather than overhyping marginal or false solutions. This can be achieved by, for example, setting ambitious climate goals and ensuring carbon removals are primarily used to clean up the atmosphere of historical emissions and to tackle future unavoidable emissions.
In the EU context, this would ideally involve aiming for climate neutrality by 2040, which is perfectly achievable, or at the very least 90% reductions without “flexibilities”, and clearly separating targets, as recommended by the CO2ol Down joint civil society campaign, which we led.
Planning for overshoot
The analysis suggests that many governments might delay climate action by assuming that large-scale removals will become available and affordable in the future. Sixteen countries, including Finland, Switzerland and the UK, said they will rely on capturing and storing CO2 from bioenergy plants, and 12, among them Canada, Japan, and Thailand, bet on direct air capture and storage, even though neither technology is proven at scale.
Several countries project massive growth in land-based sinks, often overlooking the risks of wildfires, biodiversity loss, or competition with food production, besides the already declining capacity of carbon sinks in many parts of the world, including Europe.
Numerous governments plan to count removals carried out overseas towards their own goals, raising challenging questions about verification and double-counting, not to mention human rights concerns and the unfair shifting of burdens from wealthy industrialised countries to poorer countries and communities, which played little part in creating the climate crisis. The land grabs associated with some of these projects have led to accusations of neo-colonialism.
Crucially, most major emitters are on track to overshoot their fair share of the 1.5°C carbon budget, creating “carbon debts” that would somehow be repaid by uncertain future removals. In the event that they fail to deliver on this promise, these excess emissions will be left to future generations to clean up, presuming it’s not too late.
Taking risks
The authors point out that carbon removals can help balance emissions that humanity cannot or deems too important to avoid, but relying on them as a substitute for deep emission cuts carries significant risks. Technological risks arise because novel removal methods may not scale up quickly enough. Land- and forest-based approaches carry sustainability risks, as they are fragile and impermanent.
The researchers also see grave equity concerns: overreliance on removals could shift the burden onto future generations or other countries. If promised removals fail to materialise, global temperatures could exceed 1.5°C for decades, with devastating consequences for people and ecosystems and a higher likelihood of triggering irreversible tipping points.
Safer paths
The researchers are clear that avoiding these risks requires countries to take a conservative approach that takes account of the fact that the experimental technologies of today may remain unscalable
They highlight preferable options that could limit the necessity of carbon removals while still reaching climate targets. For instance, the researchers refer to the European Commission’s Impact Assessment for the EU’s 2040 climate targets, which suggests that more sustainable consumption decisions would reduce emissions and drastically limit the need for novel removals.
They conclude that countries must prioritise rapid and sustained emissions cuts this decade. While carbon removals will still be a necessary complement, their role should be limited to balancing truly unavoidable emissions rather than compensating for inaction. Governments should minimise reliance on removals in updated climate pledges, clearly disclose residual emissions along with assumptions about removals, and distinguish between permanent carbon dioxide removal and temporary sequestration. The paper has a clear message to policy-makers: reducing dependence on removals lowers risks, enhances credibility, and strengthens the likelihood of keeping the Paris Agreement goals within reach.
From research to policy
Carbon Market Watch has been building on this research stream for the last six months, collecting information on the EU’s and 7 selected European states’ reliance on engineered removals and sequestration in land sinks. Our work, in collaboration with Climate Litigation Network and funded by the European Climate Foundation, examines national climate policies and plans, and underlying assessments.
Carbon Market Watch analyses whether and how countries define and quantify expected residual emissions, how their climate plans for dealing with their ‘emission gap’ are constructed, and how they deal with existing constraints and risks. This includes looking at countries’ scenarios and projections, types and volumes of measures and technologies they plan to utilise. We are also investigating how biomass and renewable energy supply limitations are accounted for in states’ strategies.
We build on recent internal and external research and aim to identify best practices and potential gaps in the policies and strategies of the reviewed states. We are examining the information from publicly available national documents, supplemented by transparency requests sent to public authorities, to summarise and compare national carbon removal targets and strategies. The project aims to build and publish a centralised repository of information on countries’ approaches to removals and methodological tools, and to use those to support governments and civil society in shaping effective climate policy and encouraging greater legal scrutiny of reliance on carbon removals by states. More information and reports will follow as the research continues and the project matures.
