Carbon dioxide removal
Human activity that takes CO₂ from the atmosphere and stores it in a reservoir.
Example
Examples include some land-management approaches and direct air capture with storage.
The catch
Preventing a new methane release is not atmospheric CO₂ removal.
In more depth
Carbon dioxide removal, explained.
Carbon dioxide removal is the only deliberate way to take back CO₂ already emitted, and the IPCC finds it unavoidable for reaching net zero because some residual emissions will be too hard to eliminate. It also provides the route back down after any temperature overshoot. Most removal today comes from planting and managing forests, while engineered methods operate at a small scale.
Methods differ sharply in how long they hold carbon. Trees and soils can lose it again to fire, drought or a change of land use, while CO₂ injected into rock can stay put for far longer. That makes durability the first question to ask, since a fossil emission keeps warming for centuries and a short-lived store balances it only for a while. Removal has to sit beside deep emission cuts, never in place of them.