The carbon dioxide removal gap: current removals and country proposals versus future requirements for limiting warming to 2°C or lower

Steep emissions reductions are needed in the coming decades to limit warming to 2°C or lower, followed by multiple gigatons of annual carbon dioxide removal (CDR) in the second half of the 21st century. In this presentation we make a first assessment of the “CDR gap” and ask whether countries are preparing for the CDR scale-up challenge. We find that most countries pledge only a small expansion of CDR by 2030 in their nationally determined contributions (NDCs), while only a subset have proposed CDR in their long-term mitigation strategies. There is a significant gap between these proposed CDR levels and levels in scenarios that limit warming to 2°C or lower. While some scenarios have low CDR requirements, these require even steeper emissions reductions that we are not on track to achieve. Most countries prioritize conventional CDR on land (i.e. the management of forest sinks) which has low permanence and may raise land use conflicts. Conventional CDR on land will be extremely difficult just to maintain, let alone expand to meet net zero emissions targets. By contrast, countries focus far less in their NDCs and long-term strategies on novel CDR methods such as bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, direct air capture, or blue carbon. For these technologies to make a meaningful contribution to long-term climate mitigation, urgent support is required in the formative phases of their development. Above all, rapid emissions reductions are needed to reduce our dependence on CDR and prevent a widening CDR gap by 2050.