High-permanence carbon removal

The IPCC estimates that 10 to 20% of current GHG emissions cannot be avoided in the medium term, meaning that even with massive efforts to reduce emissions at the source, humanity will continue to emit 5 to 10 billion tonnes of CO₂ equivalent every year by 2050, mainly from agriculture, transport, and some industrial processes. Removing an equivalent amount of carbon from the atmosphere will thus be necessary to reach climate-neutrality by mid-century.

Natural carbon removal solutions such as trees can play a significant part in this effort, but will not be enough given that:

1. they carry intrinsic physical limitations such as land availability for reforestation programmes;
2. they come with a non-negligeable risk of reversal, mainly because of wildfires, deforestation, and droughts.

Engineered carbon removal solutions are therefore necessary as a complement, and need to feature guaranteed high-permanence removal. Biochar is one of only a handful of such solutions. It allows for hundreds of years of guaranteed carbon removal, has a global sustainable removal capacity of up to 2 billion tonnes of CO₂ equivalent a year, and is to date the most mature solution to be brought at scale, with already-available technology and very strong scientific backing.