In 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C found that all pathways to achieve 1.5°C with limited or no overshoot, project the use of Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) in the order of 100–1000 GtCO₂ over the 21st century.

Is the international community prepared for the implementation of CDR options at this unprecedented scale? Can the sustainability challenges, risks and trade-offs inherent in large-scale CDR efforts be managed? What governance tools would need to be in place to deploy CDR options at the levels the IPCC says are needed? Can provisions under the current climate change regime support implementation at scale, or will further provisions and incentives be needed?

This report aims to address these questions, recognising that some degree of reliance on CDR options is now inevitable to achieve the Paris Agreement’s long-term temperature goal, as a direct result of the international community’s delay in making the necessary transition to a low-carbon economy.

The top-line finding is that while a number of reporting rules and accounting practices are already in place with direct applicability to the implementation of CDR options, many governance gaps remain.

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