Chiquier et al. (2025): Integrated assessment of carbon dioxide removal portfolios: land, energy, and economic trade-offs for climate policy
Solene Chiquier, Angelo Gurgel, Jennifer Morris, Yen-Heng Henry Chen, Sergey Paltsev IN: Environmental Research Letters 20, 024002, https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ada4c0
Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is crucial to achieve the Paris Agreement’s 1.5 °C–2 °C goals. However, climate mitigation scenarios have primarily focused on bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), afforestation/reforestation, and recently direct air carbon capture and storage (DACCS). This narrow focus exposes future climate change mitigation strategies to technological, institutional, and ecological pressures by overlooking the variety of existing CDR options, each with distinct characteristics—including, but not limited to, mitigation potential, cost, co-benefits, and adverse side-effects. This study expands the scope by evaluating CDR portfolios, consisting of any single CDR approach—BECCS, afforestation/reforestation, DACCS, biochar, and enhanced weathering—or a combination of them. We analyse the value of deploying these CDR portfolios to meet 1.5 °C goals, as well as their global and regional implications for land, energy, and policy costs.