We are building technologies to permanently remove carbon from the atmosphere.

The Carbon Removal Alliance

The Carbon Removal Alliance unites the innovators working to build the next trillion-dollar industry. Together, we work to advance policies that support a diverse set of permanent carbon removal technologies. Our goal is to catalyze innovation, create high-quality jobs, drive economic development, and ensure that we achieve our climate goals.

The science is clear: to avoid the worst impact of climate change, it won’t be enough to just reduce emissions. We’ll also need to permanently remove gigatons of carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere and ocean. A wide range of technologies could deliver permanent and measurable carbon removal, from enhanced weathering to biomass carbon removal and storage to direct air capture.

Principles

While we represent diverse carbon removal approaches, we’re aligned on the principles underpinning our work.

Supporting carbon removal solutions that are:

Permanent

Carbon removal must be durable over timescales comparable to the atmospheric lifetime of carbon emissions. We focus on policies that promote carbon removal with permanence of 1,000 years or more.

Net negative

Carbon removal approaches must result in a net reduction in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Additional

Carbon removal projects must demonstrably result in carbon removal that would not have otherwise occurred without the project.

Verifiable

Developing and adopting scientifically rigorous and transparent methods for monitoring, reporting, and verification is essential for permanent carbon removal.

Advocating for technology-inclusive policies

Developing a portfolio of permanent carbon removal solutions will increase our collective odds of success. We support science-based carbon removal policies that don’t pick technology winners.

Maximizing the benefits of carbon removal

Carbon removal can deliver a wide range of benefits to local communities and ecosystems. We support the development of practices, policies and programs that center community benefits and mitigate potential risks.

Carbon removal in action

We are 20+ organizations working to build the permanent carbon removal industry, including the companies developing and buying carbon removal. Our companies are innovating in communities across the world, putting people to work cleaning up our atmosphere. Get to know a few of the technologies below.

Enhanced weathering

Travertine is re-engineering chemical production for carbon removal. Using electrochemistry, Travertine produces sulfuric acid to accelerate the weathering of ultramafic mine tailings, releasing reactive elements that convert carbon dioxide from the air into carbonate minerals that are stable on geologic timescales. Their process turns mining waste into a source of carbon removal as well as raw materials for other clean transition technologies such as batteries.

Biomass sinking

Running Tide amplifies natural processes to remove carbon in the open ocean. Their buoys are made from carbon-rich forestry byproducts, coated with carbonate material, and seeded with macroalgae. The floating buoys increase ocean alkalinity and grow macroalgae before sinking biomass to the deep ocean. Their scalable approach is powered by photosynthesis, ocean currents, and gravity.

Direct air capture

Mission Zero electrochemically removes CO₂ from the air and concentrates it for a variety of sequestration pathways. Their experimental room-temperature process can be powered with clean electricity and has the potential to achieve low costs and high volumes using modular, off-the-shelf equipment.

Bio-oil carbon removal and sequestration

Charm Industrial has created a novel process for preparing and injecting bio-oil into geologic storage. Bio-oil is produced from biomass and maintains much of the carbon that was captured naturally by the plants. By injecting it into secure geologic storage, they’re making the carbon storage permanent.

Meet the builders

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The opportunity

The world needs carbon removal, fast

On top of rapid emissions cuts, the world needs gigatons of permanent carbon removal within the next three decades to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. But new technologies take time to develop; we can’t wait until 2050 and assume permanent carbon removal technologies will magically appear.

While carbon removal has made significant progress over the past few years, that progress must rapidly accelerate to reach the required scale. As of 2021, less than 10,000 tons of carbon dioxide had been permanently removed from the atmosphere by new technologies—1 million times short of the annual scale needed.

Meeting 2050 goals

Models in the IPCC report that limit warming to 1.5º C suggest we’ll need around 3.8 billion tons¹ of permanent CO2 removal annually to supplement removals from land use changes in 2050. To put that goal into scale:

Total CO₂ permanently removed from the atmosphere

~10,000 tons

Permanent CO₂ removal needed annually by 2050 to limit warming to 1.5ºC

~3.8 billion tons

A trillion dollar market opportunity

Permanent carbon removal has the potential to be a multi-trillion dollar economic opportunity within decades, creating high-quality jobs and economic growth across the world, while protecting communities from increases in cumulative pollution

Policy can catalyze the industry

Policy is critical to jumpstart innovation and catalyze a robust market for a diverse portfolio of permanent carbon removal. This will require public support for research and development; funding for demonstration projects; deployment incentives; and standards, among other tools.

¹ Climate modeling: IPCC growth path for permanent carbon dioxide removals is estimated as the median of C1 & C2 scenarios from AR6 WG3 that have non-zero totals for permanent pathways. Categories considered permanent are Enhanced weathering, CCS|Biomass, DAC and Other.

Resources

A resource on the fundamentals of carbon dioxide removal and its role in addressing the climate crisis