Comparing carbon removal approaches that act over different timescales – CarbonPlan

Defining a ton of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) seems straightforward – it requires taking a ton of CO₂ out of the air and storing it somewhere safely. Direct air capture (DAC) easily maps onto this definition: removing 1 ton of CO₂ from the atmosphere and storing it underground yields 1 ton of CDR. But defining a ton of CDR can become surprisingly tricky for technologies that don’t directly pull CO₂ from the atmosphere, and instead remove atmospheric CO₂ by altering land and ocean processes. We are often asked questions about how to compare CDR approaches that differ in permanence, measurability, and the timescale over which removal occurs. In this explainer, we outline how to compare CDR approaches that remove carbon from the atmosphere over different timescales. Thinking about CDR impacts over time can be disorienting because effects on atmospheric CO₂ depend on several equilibration processes that occur simultaneously. We can measure and reason about these dynamics using models and

Defining a ton of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) seems straightforward – it requires taking a ton of CO₂ out of the air and storing it somewhere safely. Direct air capture (DAC) easily maps onto this definition: removing 1 ton of CO₂ from the atmosphere and storing it underground yields 1 ton of CDR. But defining a ton of CDR can become surprisingly tricky for technologies that don’t directly pull CO₂ from the atmosphere, and instead remove atmospheric CO₂ by altering land and ocean processes. We are often asked questions about how to compare CDR approaches that differ in permanence, measurabili