Preserving woody debris in managed forests can remove gigatons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere

Limiting climate warming to 1.5 °C requires reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and carbon dioxide (CO₂) removal (CDR). While various CDR strategies have been explored to achieve global net-zero GHG emissions and account for legacy emissions, additional exploration is warranted to examine more durable, scalable, and sustainable approaches to achieve for no or limited overshoot of 1.5°C warming. Here we show that preserving woody debris in managed forests can remove gigatons (Gt) of CO₂ from the atmosphere sustainably. Woody debris is produced from logging, sawmill, and abandoned woody products, and can be preserved in deep soil to lengthen its residence time (a measure of durability) by thousands of years. Preserving the yearly produced woody debris in managed forests has the capacity to remove 769-937 Gt CO₂ from the atmosphere cumulatively from 2025 to 2100 if its residence time is lengthened for 100-2,000 years and 5% CO₂ emissions is reduced for preservation operation. This translates to a reduction in global temperatures between 0.35 - 0.42°C. Given the large potential, relatively low cost and long durability, future efforts should be focused on establishing large-scale demonstration projects for this technology in a variety of contexts, with rigorous monitoring of CDR, its co-benefits and side-effects.