So.. how much CO₂ are we removing today?

It is now consensus that to have a chance at keeping to 1.5°C global warming, alongside dramatic decarbonisation we will have to remove billions of tonnes of CO₂ by 2050. Given Counteract’s focus on carbon removal, we are frequently asked how far the industry must scale. To begin to answer this, we must first understand how much carbon we are removing today.

However, reaching a concrete figure, encompassing both nature-based and engineered solutions, is proving surprisingly challenging.

Nature-based carbon removals are tricky to measure

Nature-based initiatives enhance natural carbon sinks. They can include planting trees, restoring forests or regenerative farming practices that increase the carbon held in soils. Nature-based solutions are currently the most tangible of carbon removal pathways, achievable at low costs and yielding environmental co-benefits. 

However, the complex and dynamic amount of carbon in an ecosystem is difficult to encompass in a crude measurement. Organic carbon is in a continual flux, drawn in by photosynthesis and released through respiration or decomposition. The amount of carbon held in an ecosystem varies depending on factors including the environment, season, temperature, species and soil type to name a few. Soil carbon is so varied that measurements can differ even from within the same field or depending on the depth of the sample taken. Implementing nature based solutions may also cause unintended and unaccountable emissions via land displacement (ie. for foregone food production).

In addition, the durability, or permanence, of nature-based carbon removal is difficult to predict. The carbon sinks are vulnerable to destructive environmental change, such as forest fires, pests or storms. Socio-political factors may influence the ability to steward the land in a way that guarantees permanence.  

This all leads to tricky carbon accounting. Without robust measurements of carbon dynamics and without certainty of permanence it is difficult to verify the carbon removal effect. We believe innovations enabling reliable measurement in nature based solutions, including aboveground biomass (e.g. Chloris Geospatial) and soil carbon (e.g. Agricarbon) will play pivotal roles in mobilising investment into nature-based solutions.

Most operational carbon capture and storage plants are not removing carbon

It is publicised that 40Mt CO₂ is being captured from industrial point sources by carbon capture storage (CCS) each year. However, the largest active CCS facilities are simply offsetting emissions, rather than drawing down carbon from the atmosphere they are reducing the emissions entering it. Not only is this not removal, but 76% of these facilities use their CO₂ for enhanced oil recovery (EOR), delaying the decarbonisation of our energy systems.

Most Biomass to Energy with CCS are not achieving net removal

Biomass to energy with CCS (BECCS) is used in most climate models and is currently the most scaled of engineered carbon removal solutions. Globally, BECCS is expected to remove 2.5-5 GtCO₂/year by 2050. 

Today, BECCS reports 1-2.5 MtCO₂ capture. However, the facilities tend to only record the direct emissions that arise from burning biomass. Emissions from cultivation, harvest, transport and carbon capture are ignored, meaning the reported figure represents gross rather than net removal. For a true measurement, robust and transparent life cycle analysis at each step of the supply chain is required. For now, we are uncertain whether BECCS is removing any CO₂. We are hoping a new generation of biomass-to-energy players, including our recent investee Mote, will soon begin to change this.

The list of projects delivering net carbon removal is short

The number of innovations offering true carbon removal are tiny and the quantity of those removals are in the kilotonnes. Microsoft and Stripe are the largest procurers of carbon removal and they have developed strict assessment criteria. Stripe buys removals with 1000+ year permanence and only 10 projects totalling just 24 KtCO₂/yr has met their requirements, and they recently added four more to their portfolio. Microsoft buys nature-based and engineered removals and has reported a total of 1.3 MtCO₂ purchased from just 26 projects.

My estimate of the proportions of pathways contributing to net carbon removal today, including inconclusive representation of nature-based solutions (not to scale). Data for the engineered solutions from Counteract analysis and Carbonplan, 2021.

My estimate:

Taking a deeper look into the innovations removing carbon today, my best estimate lies around 40,000-50,000 tCO₂ per year of accountable net removal.

That is just 0.0004% of the scale required three decades from now. However, this rough estimate excludes nature-based removals like afforestation, which, if we could measure them, would dwarf the engineered pathways.

What is clear is the need for enormous scale up. At Counteract we’re of the firm belief that all solutions, both nature-based and engineered, are needed to meet the huge challenge ahead. As innovations in measurement of natural capital continue to improve, we can form a better picture of the capability of nature-based solutions. And looking ahead, we will continue to work with the community to firm up our insights on the current volume of carbon removal, how to think about the whole life cycle impacts, and how it might evolve moving forward. If you’re keen to input and share your views, we’d love to hear them.