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Response: Technology – capture & store CO2

CO2 pulled from the air – image: Climeworks

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Home > Climate wiki > Response > Negative emissions technology

Technology to capture CO2 from the atmosphere and store it…somewhere

Summary

In 2022, the world emitted 40.5 billion tonnes of CO2. At that rate, for every year of operation at its full potential, each CDR hub would take the atmosphere back in time by almost 13 minutes, but in the time it took to remove those 13 minutes of CO2, the world would have spewed another full year of CO2 into the atmosphere. If everyone on Earth planted a tree—8 billion trees—it would take us back in time by about 43 hours every year, once the trees had matured. Humanity has never removed an atmospheric pollutant at a global, continental or, even, regional scale—we have only ever shut down the source and let nature do the clearing up. – Prof. David Ho, 2023

Climate targets that depend heavily on CO2 removal may contravene international law – Science, Nov. 2023

Don’t Fall for Big Oil’s Carbon Capture Deceptions: Carbon capture technology is a PR fig leaf designed to help Big Oil delay the phaseout of fossil fuels. – Scientific America, Dec. 2023

…it can be concluded that less than 10mtpa of CO2 was injected in 2023 – or 0.00026% of global energy-related emissions last year. The promotion of CCS (carbon capture and storage) by the fossil fuel sector aims to maintain business as usual, not to reduce production of oil and gas, meaning emissions of this scale will continue into the future.– 2024 Eefa Institute

  Response

Home > Climate wiki > Response > Negative emissions technology

Summary

In 2022, the world emitted 40.5 billion tonnes of CO2. At that rate, for every year of operation at its full potential, each CDR hub would take the atmosphere back in time by almost 13 minutes, but in the time it took to remove those 13 minutes of CO2, the world would have spewed another full year of CO2 into the atmosphere. If everyone on Earth planted a tree—8 billion trees—it would take us back in time by about 43 hours every year, once the trees had matured. Humanity has never removed an atmospheric pollutant at a global, continental or, even, regional scale—we have only ever shut down the source and let nature do the clearing up. – Prof. David Ho, 2023

Climate targets that depend heavily on CO2 removal may contravene international law – Science, Nov. 2023

Don’t Fall for Big Oil’s Carbon Capture Deceptions: Carbon capture technology is a PR fig leaf designed to help Big Oil delay the phaseout of fossil fuels. – Scientific America, Dec. 2023

…it can be concluded that less than 10mtpa of CO2 was injected in 2023 – or 0.00026% of global energy-related emissions last year. The promotion of CCS (carbon capture and storage) by the fossil fuel sector aims to maintain business as usual, not to reduce production of oil and gas, meaning emissions of this scale will continue into the future.– 2024 Eefa Institute

 CDRXIV is an online repository for preprint articles and datasets on carbon dioxide removal (CDR). It is free to submit content and free to use.

Carbon Removal Updates provides a weekly summary of science papers and who is doing what in this sector.

Statista shows the capacity of operational large-scale carbon capture and storage facilities worldwide as of 2024.

CDR.fiy provides comprehensive analysis of current markets: “Buyers want proof of what they are getting.”

Video 1: 15 minute explainer why most CCS is a fossil fuel scam: Sept. 2025
Fig. 1: Methods used to capture and store carbon dioxide image: The State of Carbon Dioxide Removal report 2024. Click on the image to be taken to the report.
Fig. 1: Methods used to capture and store carbon dioxide image: The State of Carbon Dioxide Removal report 2024. Click on the image to be taken to the report.

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