The World Economic Forum (WEF) has published a white paper that examines the new technologies urgently needed to deliver additional, permanent and quantifiable impacts to slash emissions.
WEF’S Carbon Dioxide Removal: Best-Practice Guidelines white paper examines the potential of engineered carbon dioxide removal (CDR) through biochar, bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), direct air capture with carbon storage (DACCS) and enhanced rock weathering.
According to the WEF, the world must accelerate the removal of CO2 from the atmosphere, from 2 billion to 10 billion tonnes a year by 2050 for three reasons:
- to reverse the accumulation of historic emissions
- to balance the hardest-to-abate emissions
- to safeguard against Earth’s feedback loops from a warmer world
Despite needing to halve emissions by 2030 to stand a chance of limiting warming to 1.5C, they continue to rise. Decarbonizing industries is essential, but net zero is not enough, and natural climate solutions do not go far enough.
… WEF notes

The engineered CDR landscape
According to the white paper, to remove 10 Gt of CO2 a year by 2050 requires ramping up all solutions, whether engineered or nature-based. Success depends on integrity (delivering an additional, permanent and quantifiable impact) and scalability (fast enough to make a difference). The engineered CDR includes:
#1 Biochar carbon removal (BCR)
BCR creates charcoal when biomass is heated without oxygen, enabling the carbon in the biomass to resist decay. Biochar is more affordable than other engineered CDR but is limited by the availability of sustainable biomass.
#2 Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS)
BECCS burns sustainable biomass to produce power and heat or processes biomass. The resulting CO2 is stripped from the flue gas, compressed and stored permanently. Carbon capture is performed by the biomass through photosynthesis.
#3 Direct air capture with carbon storage (DACCS)
DACCS uses filters to trap CO2, which is compressed and stored underground. It uses a small land footprint and offers permanent geological storage, but costs are very high ($600–$1,000/tonne), due to the clean energy required.
#4 Enhanced rock weathering (ERW)
ERW involves spreading forest soils, croplands and beaches with minerals that dissolve in water and absorb CO2, binding it for hundreds of years. Uncertainty remains about the cost, side effects, permanence and scalability.
DACCS and BECCS are clearly additional since the technology is dedicated to removals and would not exist otherwise. Both can store carbon underground for millennia, whereas natural climate solutions (NCS) risk releasing carbon through forest fires or degradation.
Engineered CDR solutions, executed in industrial installations, are simpler to quantify. Current CDR totals 2 Gt CO2/yr, of which 99.9% comes from NCS (e.g. afforestation, reforestation). While only 0.1% results from engineered CDR, it has more potential to scale up, because the space required for NCS is limited by other land uses. The United Nations estimates that the mitigation potential of engineered CDR by 2050 could total 62 Gt CO2/yr, compared to 33 Gt CO2/yr for NCS. The main constraint to scaling up engineered CDR is the high cost, which is where private-sector leaders have an important role to play.