Governments are still at loggerheads over the timeline for publishing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) next three-part report, after countries doubled down on existing positions at a meeting in Bangkok.
Last week, around 330 delegates from more than 100 countries met in Thailand for the 64th session (IPCC-64) of the UN’s climate science body.
The meeting, set against the backdrop of a global energy shock triggered by war in the Middle East, comes more than two-and-a-half years into the IPCC’s seventh assessment cycle (AR7).
There was disagreement on a range of issues, including the workplan for the cycle’s “working group” reports.
For five consecutive meetings, countries have failed to agree on whether the reports should be completed before, or after, the second “global stocktake” process under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), due to culminate in 2028.
IPCC chair Prof Jim Skea tells Carbon Brief the “frustrating and disappointing” meeting delivered “minimal outcomes”.
“We made some formal decisions by consensus, but I would say they were more to postpone the decision making than they were to take decisions,” he says.
AR7 report timeline
As is typical for an IPCC assessment report cycle, AR7 will include three “working group” reports – on the physical science of climate change, impacts and adaptation, and mitigation. These will be summarised in a synthesis report.
Work is already underway on the three headline reports, as well as a special report on cities and climate change and methodology reports on carbon dioxide removal technologies and inventories for short-lived climate forcers.
However, countries are yet to reach an agreement as to when the three headline reports will be published, after deadlocked negotiations at meetings at Lima, Hangzhou, Sofia and Istanbul.
A coalition of developing and developed countries have backed a plan – proposed by the IPCC’s co-chairs – that would see the three reports published in 2028. This would enable their findings to feed into the second global stocktake, due to conclude that year at the COP33 conference.
The global stocktake is a five-yearly appraisal of global progress on tackling climate change that is designed to inform the national climate goals countries must submit to the UN under the Paris Agreement.
A separate group of countries, including China, India, Kenya, Russia and Saudi Arabia, have argued for a longer timeline on the grounds that developing nations need more time to review and approve the reports, according to reports from inside the meeting. This would mean some of the working group reports would be published after the second global stocktake is completed.
Dr Bill Hare, CEO and senior scientist at Climate Analytics, tells Carbon Brief that “the majority of countries, across geographies and levels of development, including least developed countries and small island developing states” support a timeline where the AR7 reports align with the stocktake.
Speaking during the opening session of IPCC-64, UNFCCC executive secretary Simon Steill said that 194 nations who attended COP30 in Belem last year had “emphasised the critical importance of the IPCC’s work in ensuring that the best available science feeds into the global stocktake”.
The timeline of the AR7 reports was not on a provisional agenda released ahead of the meeting.
However, the contentious issue was belatedly added to the agenda on the meeting’s first day, according to the Earth Negotiation Bulletin (ENB) reporting from inside the meeting.
This came after objections about the omission from a raft of countries, including Algeria, China, Egypt, Kenya, India, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Venezuela.
According to the ENB, Saudi Arabia “insisted” the issue be included on the agenda and warned that deferring it to the next meeting “risked a scenario in which the budget would not be approved and further work would be delayed”.
In response to calls for clarification on why there was no formal agenda item on report timelines, IPCC AR7 chair Prof Jim Skea said the secretariat had “not detected the flexibility” among governments that could lead to its resolution, according to the ENB.
Skea thus proposed that “informal consultations” would be held in order to “identify the basis for any flexibility”. He also suggested the subject be discussed in a session earmarked for “any other business”.
This proposal was rejected by some delegations, who argued the issue required more formal treatment and said informal consultations might not be inclusive, the ENB says.
In the end, the IPCC agreed to add the item to the agenda and establish a contact group, co-chaired by Brazil and Canada, tasked with advising the IPCC on how to make progress.
Speaking to Carbon Brief, Skea explains that the secretariat did not put the issue on the agenda because it had “very low expectations about the success of such a discussion” and felt that more preparation was needed “to build the foundations for a decision” at a future meeting.
The last-minute addition of AR7 timelines to the agenda prompted some delegations to question the inclusivity of discussions. They noted that some countries had come without permission from their governments to discuss the issue, the ENB reports, whereas others with “limited resources” had decided to skip the meeting altogether.
This position was articulated at different stages of negotiations by Antigua and Barbuda, the Netherlands and Singapore in interventions supported by Canada, China, Cuba, Mexico, South Korea and Tanzania.
Climate Analytics’ Hare explains:
“The agenda item ‘progress with the timeline of AR7’ was added at the last minute upon pressure by countries including India and Saudi Arabia, in an attempt to introduce their own timelines into the process, which would push both WG2 and WG3 to 2029.
“As the AR7 timeline was not on the provisional agenda, many developing countries with resource and capacity constraints across the continent did not attend the session.”
One observer to the talks tells Carbon Brief that logistical issues prompted by the war in Iran had contributed to some countries’ decision not to attend.
‘Heated and polarised’
Discussions about the AR7 report timeline were focused on how to reach agreement by the IPCC’s next session.
A number of solutions were proposed, including for the IPCC secretariat to hold “informal conversations” between sessions to the creation of an “options paper” based on country submissions that would be presented at IPCC-65. Ultimately, all options ultimately failed to get the consensus required to be officially ratified by the IPCC.
On Thursday, the co-chairs of a contact group tasked with advising on how to progress with the timeline issue reported that “no consensus had been reached” and said there was a need for a “further exchange of views”, according to ENB.
Singapore subsequently suggested a plan for countries to formally submit views on the topic to the IPCC secretariat, which would then summarise submissions and present an “options report” for discussion at IPCC-65, says ENB. This would allow countries that were not prepared or not present at IPCC-64 to contribute, the country delegation said.
On the other hand, the Cook Islands said that “time is of the essence and further submissions from members should not be invited”, reports ENB. The country delegation also said the report timeline presented by co-chairs in Lima provided “sufficient time” for report reviews. This intervention was supported by Australia, Belize, Chile, Dominican Republic, Finland, Italy, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Norway, Palau, Panama, Samoa and Vanuatu.
Saudi Arabia repeated objections raised at previous meetings and said there was a need to address issues relating to overlaps in report scheduling, back-to-back reviews, inclusivity and capacity, as well as how the IPCC aligns with the UNFCCC processes, reports the ENB.
Instead, Saudi Arabia suggested that a later publication of working group reports in 2028 and 2029 would “provide sufficient intervals between IPCC sessions, time for developing countries to undertake their reviews and inclusive engagement”. This intervention was backed by Bahrain, Belarus, Kenya, Russia and Yemen, according to ENB.
As in previous IPCC sessions, there were diverging opinions around whether the IPCC needed to align report production with the global stocktake.
Some countries – including Bangladesh, Panama and South Korea, emphasised the need for the reports to align with the UNFCCC process.
The Netherlands, backing the plan for countries to submit their views ahead of IPCC-65, said delivery of AR7 reports after the global stocktake would “significantly lower” their policy relevance. The delegation noted that “never before” had the timeline given rise to such “heated and polarised debate”, according to the ENB.
Others – including Saudi Arabia, China and Russia – minimised the role of IPCC reports as an input into the stocktake, reports ENB.
A selection of interventions by country delegations at the IPCC’s Bangkok meeting, as reported in the ENB’s meeting summary. ENB (2026).
A number of countries, including France, Haiti and Panama, stressed that the absence of several delegations from the Bangkok meeting, including many small-island states, made the discussions about the timeline less inclusive, according to ENB.
Skea tells Carbon Brief that none of the talking points raised by countries around AR7 reports were new:
“I didn’t hear any new arguments offered at this meeting.”
No decision
By close of play on Thursday, Skea presented a draft decision text which proposed that governments entrust the IPCC secretariat to develop an “options paper” that would be circulated ahead of IPCC-65, with a view to making a decision at the meeting.
India, Russia and Saudi Arabia said that they would prefer the creation of a “task group” that would produce a “compilation of views and proposals” on options for the timeline, according to the ENB. This would provide the “basis for further discussion” at IPCC-65.
Skea subsequently advised IPCC vice-chair Ladislaus Chang’a to form a huddle to find a middle ground between these two approaches.
On Friday, Chang’a presented a compromise solution where the IPCC chair and secretariat would “facilitate an exchange on the timeline with a view to reaching a decision at IPCC-65”, according to ENB. This would include overseeing a “task group” that would work between now and the next session.
This “draft decision” was backed by Brazil, China, India, Kenya, Russia and Saudi Arabia.
However, Belgium, Chile, Colombia, the Cook Islands, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Panama, Sweden and Switzerland said they could not support it, ENB says.
Antigua and Barbuda, the Cook Islands and a coalition of European nations instead suggested the chair hold “informal conversations” with governments over the coming months, with a view to coming to a timeline agreement at IPCC-65, says the ENB.
Skea subsequently proposed eliminating the reference to the task group in the decision text and to postpone all further deliberations on the timeline to IPCC-65.
This proposal faced opposition from a swathe of developing and emerging-economy countries, including Algeria, Angola, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Botswana, Burundi, Cuba, Guinea, India, Iraq, Kenya, Libya, Libya, Russia, Tanzania, Tunisia, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.
At this juncture, a growing number of countries supported pressing ahead without a decision text, citing lack of consensus as the meeting clock was running down, notes ENB.
Among these countries was Canada. Its delegation noted there was little time left in the session – and that countries had heard “basically nothing” about the scientific work of the IPCC at the meeting, reports ENB.
Despite some last-hour calls from India and South Africa for previous proposals to be revisited, no agreement was reached and no decision issued.
Review of IPCC principles and procedures
Another issue discussed in Bangkok was a review of the IPCC’s principles and procedures, which inform how the panel goes about putting together its reports.
The principles and procedures came into force in 1998 and are meant to be reviewed every five years. However, the last review was delayed due to the Covid pandemic.
Opening the agenda item on the IPCC’s principles and procedures towards the beginning of the talks on Tuesday, IPCC officials laid out 12 topics that the IPCC bureau had prioritised for review, according to the ENB. These included:
- Author selection criteria
- Responsibility for author selection
- Chapter scientists
- Scope of literature/Indigenous knowledge and local knowledge. (See Carbon Brief’s recent report on considering Indigenous knowledge within the IPCC.)
- Selection criteria and responsibilities for review editors
- Terms of reference for the chair, vice chairs and working group co-chairs
- Terms of reference for technical support units
- Developing country engagement and broader finance concerns
- Carbon footprint and inclusivity
- Artificial intelligence
- Copyright
- Timing and guidance on conflict of interest
Skea told countries that, while the bureau’s input was meant to inform discussions, it was for them to decide if a review of the principles and procedures was needed and what topics should be covered.
In discussions that followed, some countries called for the review to focus on the inclusivity of global south countries, while others said the review should be “targeted”, “focused” and “completed within a set time frame” to allow the IPCC to make swift progress.
Noting countries’ differing views, Skea proposed a huddle to discuss whether a task force on the review should be created.
On Wednesday, countries once again set out their priorities for the review.
According to the ENB, many countries “prioritised copyright, conflict of interest procedures, AI, and ensuring inclusivity by supporting the participation of developing and least developed countries and incorporating Indigenous knowledge and local knowledge”.
Many also said the “principles and procedures are working well and supported a limited review that could be completed by IPCC-65, ahead of the report approval sessions starting in 2027”, the ENB says.
A small number of countries, including Saudi Arabia, India and Russia, called for the procedures to dictate that the timing of IPCC reports should be unaffected by “external factors”.
This could be interpreted as a reference to the push for the next IPCC assessment report to coincide with the next global stocktake – something that Saudi Arabia, India and Russia oppose.
Skea proposed the establishment of a contact group to try to take discussions forward, appointing Egypt and Ireland as co-chairs.
On Friday, the contact group co-chairs told the talks that they had found no agreement on whether to complete a review of the principles and procedures at these talks or at a future session.
Skea then presented a draft decision produced by the contact group co-chairs, which stated that the “IPCC’s principles and procedures are robust and have worked well” and expressed thanks to the bureau “for their work in preparing for a review of the principles and procedures”.
In response, Saudi Arabia said the draft “lacked a clear process and could be misleading”, with India adding that the “group had not reached agreement”, according to the ENB.
Colombia suggested “specifying that the review of principles and procedures had ended and would be considered again in 2031”, it continues.
This idea was opposed by Saudi Arabia, who said the “review has just begun”.
India, Kenya and Saudi Arabia also opposed language indicating the principles and procedures “have worked well and are robust”.
Norway “observed that lack of consensus could be interpreted to mean that no amendments of the principles and procedures were appropriate and the panel could consider the review complete”, according to the ENB.
Skea presented a slightly revised text for adoption, which was adopted without further discussion.
The text notes the “diversity of views expressed at the session” and “decides to consider the review of the IPCC principles and procedures at future sessions, as appropriate”.
The ENB notes that this outcome left countries confused, saying:
“Some countries saw lack of consensus as an indication that discussions on the issue are now complete, while others believe the review process has just begun.”
Approval of meeting summaries
In what could be viewed as a signifier of the high levels of disagreement between countries, the talks failed to approve the meeting reports from its past three sessions in Peru, China and Bulgaria.
(The approval of the reports from China and Bulgaria had already been shifted to this meeting after countries failed to agree to them at previous sessions.)
During discussions on Wednesday, many European countries, along with Panama, complained about a “lack of transparency” in the reports, according to the ENB.
They suggested that countries making interventions should be named in the reports and that the number of speakers showing their support or opposition to an issue should be included.
This idea was opposed by Saudi Arabia.
In response, Skea called for a huddle to convene to discuss the matter further.
On Friday, Skea noted that some countries had suggested that the “quality” of the report from the most recent meeting in Peru was higher than those from China and Bulgaria and suggested that countries adopt it.
Germany opposed this, expressing “openness” to further revisions of the report, in light of “diverging views” and a “lack of consensus in the room”, according to the ENB.
France requested that “past and future reports include everything that has been said by all delegates”, a view that was described as “unacceptable” by Saudi Arabia.
Skea said the lack of consensus from countries meant the issue would be deferred to the next IPCC meeting. This was reflected in a text adopted at the meeting.
Funding crunch
The IPCC receives funding from its parent organisations, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and UN Environment Programme (UNEP), in addition to voluntary contributions from its member governments and the UNFCCC. This money is held in a “trust fund”.
According to the IPCC, the trust fund “supports IPCC activities, in particular the participation of developing country experts in the IPCC, the organisation of meetings as well as publication and translation of IPCC reports”.
However, in her opening remarks at last week’s meeting, UNEP executive director Inger Andersen warned that “expenditures from the IPCC trust fund have exceeded contributions over the last few years”, according to the ENB. She added:
“If this continues, the trust fund’s cash balance will be depleted before the end of the seventh cycle, impacting both this cycle and the transition to the next.”
The IPCC secretariat presented nine different IPCC funding scenarios for 2026-29 to the delegates. These scenarios include three different future expenditure levels, ranging from a “business as usual” scenario to a “severe spending cuts” scenario, which would see “fully virtual operations with suspension of multiple activities”.
They combine these expenditure scenarios with three different contribution scenarios, including a scenario in which annual contributions match annual expenditure and another that is equivalent to 2025 expenditure.
These scenarios highlighted that the IPCC trust fund is “likely to be depleted soon without new and larger financial contributions, expenditure cuts, or both,, the ENB says. It continues:
“The message was clear: if contributions do not increase, significant cuts in operations and more efficient meeting formats will need to be implemented. Possible ways forward include reduced activities and the greater use of virtual meetings, which run counter to the needs voiced by many countries for inclusivity, equity and capacity.”
The ENB adds that “the timing of this situation is particularly difficult”, because the IPCC is moving into its “busiest and most difficult part” of the assessment cycle, when the initial draft of reports are being written and reviewed.
According to the ENB, “the pattern of contentious meetings may also increase costs, especially if the panel requires late night sessions or extended days to conclude its work”.
Skea tells Carbon Brief that he is “more confident” about the budget than the “mood music that came out of some of the reporting”. He notes:
“It is really only in the worst-case scenarios where you combine low levels of contributions with high levels of spend that you run into real difficulties during the [AR7] cycle.
“During the first Trump administration, other countries stepped in [with funds] and we are now seeing these signs as well.”
The ENB reports that “Sweden has committed to increasing its contribution by 150% and encouraged all countries to contribute financially or host plenary sessions”.
The IPCC did not publish an updated budget in the documents for the IPCC-64 meeting.
Working group updates
The co-chairs of the three AR7 working group reports (WG1, WG2 and WG3) also presented updates on progress.
All three working group reports highlight the first joint lead author meeting, which was held in Paris in December. The meeting brought together lead authors from all three working groups and saw a total of 650 attendees.
All working groups have also submitted “zero order drafts” – an initial draft text – of their reports to their respective technical support units.
Meanwhile, the World Climate Research Programme and IPCC co-sponsored a workshop on high-impact events and Earth system tipping points in Paris in November 2025.
Separately, the IPCC undertook an expert review of the first order draft of the “special report on climate change and cities” between October and December 2025.
The agenda for the Bangkok meeting also included a range of other items.
IPCC legal officer Jennifer Lew Schneider reported that there are currently 263 organisations with “observer status” to the IPCC, alongside 20 new applications.
IPCC vice-chair Diana Ürge-Vorsatz presented a progress report on an expert meeting on “gender, diversity, equity and Inclusivity”, which was held in September 2025.
The UNFCCC’s Annett Möhner presented a review of collaborations between the IPCC and UNFCCC. In its summary of the meeting, the ENB says:
“She described activities and outcomes from UNFCCC COP30 including decisions on the global mutirão, procedural and logistical elements of the global stocktake process, and the Belém gender action plan, as well as conclusions on research and systematic observation.”
Similarly, Simone Schiele – programme officer at the IPBES secretariat – noted outcomes of the IPBES-12 meeting held in February 2026, as well as ongoing IPBES work.
‘Frustrating and disappointing’
IPCC chair Skea tells Carbon Brief that, overall, the meeting delivered “minimal outcomes”. He says:
“It was a frustrating and disappointing meeting. It was only a business meeting – there was no science involved in it. The lack of progress was a frustration to me, sitting there, chairing it.”
The next meeting – IPCC-65 – will take place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, during the second week of October 2026.
During this session, delegates hope to finalise the timeline for the AR7 reports and approve the draft reports of the IPCC’s 61st, 62nd and 63rd sessions.
As such, the ENB notes that “intersessional work” will play an important role in preparing panel members for meetings at IPCC-65. This, it says, includes the “submission of proposals on the AR7 timeline and informal consultations with the chair to identify points of convergence and possible flexibility”.
Skea says the secretariat will be working between sessions “to figure out the process that will move [things] in the right direction”. He continues:
“One of the issues that we have to consider is that there has been, in my view, quite a loss of trust between different groups of countries. We do need to address the trust issue, as well as the technicalities of how the timeline is constructed.”
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IPCC: ‘Frustrating and disappointing’ meeting leaves AR7 timeline in deadlock
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Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies will need to be deployed at rates even faster than those seen for solar power, if the world is to have a chance of limiting global warming to 1.5C by 2100, says a new report.
Nearly all pathways to meeting the Paris Agreement’s highest ambition of keeping global temperatures to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels in 2100 involve CDR techniques – ranging from tree-planting to sucking CO2 from air with machines.
This is in addition to steep and immediate emissions cuts.
Scientists expect carbon emissions to push warming beyond 1.5C in the decade ahead, meaning that the target can only be achieved “from above” via large-scale CDR that brings down global temperatures.
These temperature trajectories are known as “overshoot” pathways.
The third “state of CDR” report, written by more than 50 scientists, says that countries’ current CDR plans would fall short of what is needed to limit warming to 1.5C by more than 5bn tonnes of CO2 (GtCO2) per year by 2050.
Global CDR would have to increase fourfold – from 2.2GtCO2 in 2026 to 8.75GtCO2 by 2050 – to have a chance of meeting the 1.5C target by 2100, according to the report.
It adds that deploying CDR can be a “gradual process”, making the period 2026-30 “crucial” for “establishing CDR’s role in limiting climate damages” in the future.
Below, Carbon Brief covers the key findings of the third state of CDR report. (This follows from Carbon Brief’s coverage of the first report in 2023 and second report in 2024.)
- What is CDR?
- What are current levels of CDR?
- How much CDR is needed to reach net-zero goals?
- What does the science say about the potential and costs of CDR?
- What have governments pledged on CDR?
- What is the current funding and research landscape for CDR?
- How is policy impacting CDR demand?
What is CDR?
According to the report, the definition of CDR is:
“Human activities capturing CO2 from the atmosphere and storing it durably in geological, terrestrial or ocean reservoirs, or in products. This includes human enhancement of natural removal processes but excludes natural uptake not directly caused by anthropogenic [human-caused] activities.”
In addition to this, the report includes “three key principles” for CDR, which are:
- The captured CO2 must come from the atmosphere, not from “fossil sources”.
- The subsequent storage “must be durable”, so that the CO2 is not soon reintroduced to the atmosphere.
- The removal must result from human intervention that is in addition to Earth’s natural processes.
In this report, a CDR method is considered durable if it is able to lock up carbon for “decades or more”.
The report classifies CDR techniques as either “conventional” or “novel”.
“Convential” CDR techniques are “well established, already deployed at scale and widely reported by countries as part of [land-use] activities”.
The methods included in this group are tree-planting, ecosystem restoration, agroforestry (trees in agriculture), improving soil carbon in croplands and natural lands, and durable wood production.
“Novel” CDR techniques have “lower level of readiness for deployment and, as a consequence, are currently deployed at smaller scales”, says the report.
Some examples of different CDR methods are listed on the graphic below.
The graphic also shows whether carbon is captured through biological or chemical processes, as well as how “ready” the method is and for how long it can store carbon, among other features.
The report says that CDR is “needed alongside deep and rapid emissions reductions” to give Earth a chance of limiting global warming to 1.5C. It continues:
“It should play a smaller role than emissions reductions given uncertainty around the feasible levels of scaling, sustainability limits, storage availability and the risk of reversal, among other constraints.
“In general, CDR should be seen as a limited resource that will need to be used prudently.”
It adds that CDR can “fulfil three major functions”.
In the near term, CDR can help reduce “net emissions”, it says.
In the medium term, CDR can “counterbalance residual emissions” to achieve net-zero CO2 or net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, the report continues.
(“Residual emissions” are those that cannot be eradicated through technologies or societal changes, such as methane emissions from rice production.)
Research suggests that global warming is likely to stop, more or less, once net-zero is achieved globally.
In the long term, CDR can “help achieve net-negative emissions”, a state where CO2 removal exceeds emissions, says the report.
In this state, humans could lower global temperatures. This may allow the world to limit global warming to 1.5C by 2100, even if the temperature target is surpassed earlier on in the century.
Future trajectories where temperatures exceed the 1.5C limit before being brought back down again through CDR techniques are known as “overshoot” pathways.
What are current levels of CDR?
The report says that, at present, “99.9%” of existing CDR is conventional, land-based techniques such as tree-planting and ecosystem restoration.
The world currently removes 2.2GtCO2 per year, equivalent to around 5% of gross global CO2 emissions, it continues.
The largest contributors to removing CO2 from the atmosphere are China, the US, the EU, Brazil and Russia.
The chart below shows the amount of CO2 removed each year over 2014-23 by the largest contributors, through tree-planting (afforestation) and forest restoration (reforestation).
“Novel” CDR, such as biochar and direct air capture, currently removes just 2m tonnes of CO2 annually at present, according to the report.
However, these methods have been growing at a rate of 40% per year – “similar to successful technologies like solar energy, but insufficient for the scale-up required to meet the Paris temperature goal”, says the report.
The graphic below illustrates how the contribution of conventional CDR currently dwarfs novel CDR, but how the latter techniques are quickly growing.
The report says that investment in CDR companies recovered in 2025 following a dip – and its “share of all climate-tech funding” grew to 2.6%.
The report also notes that, at present, most CDR efforts are unevenly distributed across the world.
For example, two-thirds of conventional CDR in voluntary carbon markets is in Latin America, according to the report. (Voluntary carbon markets are where companies can buy credits for carbon-reducing or removing projects, such as tree-planting, to claim that they have “offset” some of their own emissions.)
In addition, most pilot projects that aim to demonstrate novel CDR methods are located in only a few countries, such as Sweden, Denmark and the US, says the report.
The chart below shows the location and timeline of demonstration projects that have been announced, are under construction or in operation globally.
The report continues:
“While first-movers play important roles, if their actions do not diffuse more widely, vulnerability emerges, as evidenced by the impact of US climate policy dismantling.”
(For more, see: How is policy impacting CDR demand?)
How much CDR is needed to reach net-zero goals?
The report examines three scenarios where global temperature rise is limited to “well below” 2C by 2100:
- A current ambition scenario, based on national climate pledges (but omitting the US);
- A highest-possible ambition scenario;
- A delayed ambition scenario, which is consistent with current targets until 2035 and then switches to the highest ambition scenario.
The pledges considered in the report are “nationally determined contributions”, or NDCs, which countries submit periodically to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). NDCs lay out a country’s climate ambition.
Under the current ambition scenario, the report projects a total of 5.9GtCO2 of CDR by 2050 and 12GtCO2 by 2100.
This scenario would result in end-of-century warming of 1.7-2.7C. Importantly, the report says, this scenario does not result in the world reaching net-zero CO2 levels, “meaning that global temperatures would continue to rise, albeit at a much more gradual pace, beyond 2100”.
Under the highest-possible ambition scenario, CDR scales up to 8.8GtCO2 by mid-century and 15.3GtCO2 by the end of the century.
This scenario assumes “full buy-in by all nations”, with economics, scale-up and sustainability providing the main constraints on CDR deployment, the report says.
The highest ambition scenario results in global temperatures peaking at 1.7-1.8C around 2050 and the world achieving net-zero emissions around that time.
Under the delayed ambition scenario, CDR would scale up to 7GtCO2 by 2050 and 23.6GtCO2 by 2100. This scenario shows global temperatures peaking between 1.7C and 2.0C.
This scenario requires larger CDR deployment in the long term than the highest-ambition scenario does, due to the larger cumulative emissions caused by delaying deep emissions reductions.
In both the high ambition and delayed ambition scenarios, the world reaches “deeply net-negative CO2 emissions” by 2100, the report says. This continued deployment of CDR will further draw CO2 from the atmosphere, lowering global temperatures back down to 1.5C.
The chart below shows annual global greenhouse gas emissions through the end of the century under current ambition (red), highest ambition (green) and delayed ambition (blue) scenarios.
While global CDR capacity scales up more slowly in the first and third scenarios, the report notes that, in all three cases, “novel CDR reaches gigatonne-scale deployment by 2050”.
What does the science say about the potential and costs of CDR?
There is a wide range of both carbon-removal potential and associated costs between different methods of CDR, according to the report.
However, it also notes that these numbers “range widely” in the scientific literature.
The discrepancies in estimates of carbon-removal potential are due to a number of factors, the report says, including a lack of available scientific data, inconsistencies in the assumptions made in assessing technical feasibility and a lack of agreement on what, exactly, “potential” means.
These elements also influence the cost of different CDR methods, but additional factors – such as deployment costs in different areas, technological approaches and scope – also play a role in establishing price differences. Because of this, the report says, “cost estimates are often difficult to compare across methods, complicating design and policy decisions”.
The chart below shows the reported range of mitigation potential (left) and reported range of costs (right) for different CDR methods. The top four rows indicate conventional CDR methods, while bottom 11 rows show novel CDR methods. The chart refers to “mitigation potential”, rather than removal potential, because some estimates do not distinguish between removals and avoided emissions.
(Avoided emissions refers to the difference in emissions from carrying out a project, compared to a hypothetical alternative – such as the reduced emissions from halting deforestation.)
The darker colours indicate estimates that are more constrained, meaning that they are either based on stricter assumptions or there is more agreement between different estimates.
The report notes that for most removal methods, the low end of the potential is around 1GtCO2 per year, while the upper limit of costs is more than $200/tCO2.
The least expensive CDR approaches are forestry-based methods, soil-carbon sequestration and biomass burial. For forestry-based methods, the report puts the cost of CDR at $5-$53 per tonne of CO2 removed. Soil-carbon sequestration costs reach as high as $150 per tonne of CO2 removed, but could have negative overall costs “when accounting for crop yield increases potentially resulting” from changed farm-management practices, the report says.
However, it adds that “these CDR methods are typically associated with lower levels of permanence” than other methods.
Other relatively low-cost methods include coastal wetland restoration, biochar, bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) and enhanced rock weathering, while ocean alkalinity enhancement is a medium-cost option.
The most expensive methods include direct air carbon capture and storage (DACCS) and direct ocean carbon capture and storage (DOCCS).
The report also notes that a total estimate of CDR removals cannot be obtained by adding up the removal potential of all of the separate methods, since different methods can compete for scarce resources. For example, BECCS, biochar, biomass burial and biomass sinking all rely on the same base input – biomass – and therefore cannot all be maximised at the same time.
What have governments pledged on CDR?
While many countries include some amount of CDR in their national climate plans, there is currently a large gap between the amount of CDR pledged in these plans and the amount that will be needed to limit global temperature rise to 1.5C by the end of the century, says the report.
This quantity is referred to as the “CDR gap” – the difference between what is pledged and what is needed.
The size of the CDR gap is dependent not just on the pledges made by countries, but also the choice of the “benchmark” scenario against which the pledges are measured. Lower – or delayed – emissions reductions lead to larger shortfalls in the long term, meaning “CDR must subsequently be scaled to very high levels”, says the report.
Current NDCs and other country submissions to the UNFCCC total 2.5GtCO2 per year of removals in 2030, 2.7GtCO2 per year in 2035 and 3.6GtCO2 per year in 2050.
This gives a CDR gap of 0.3GtCO2 in 2030, 1.2GtCO2 in 2035 and 5.2GtCO2 in 2050, according to the report. These figures are obtained using assumed “immediate, ambitious action at all levels to reduce emissions” and the most-ambitious estimates of CDR set out in national pledges. Together, this provides a “lower bound” for the CDR gap, says the report.
By comparison, a 10-year delay in implementing ambitious emissions reductions will result in the need to remove at least an additional 150GtCO2 from the atmosphere, compared to the most ambitious scenario. (See: How much CDR is needed to reach net-zero goals?)
The report says that the CDR gap has widened since the second state of CDR report was released in 2024, due to the US leaving the Paris Agreement. It adds that other countries have “not delivered a step change in ambition” in their latest round of climate pledges.
It also cautions that “credibility issues with national pledges may mean that the CDR gap is actually larger than what we assess here”.
The report notes that current CDR pledges by companies are “substantially higher than country pledges”, at 5GtCO2 per year in 2050. However, it adds, “credibility in these announcements is low”.
What is the current funding and research landscape for CDR?
Funding of CDR research and development – as well as investment in CDR companies – has continued to increase in recent years.
In total, there has been around $5.6bn in grant funding distributed to CDR research since 2005, according to the report’s analysis. Roughly one-third of this has come in the past three years.
Funding for CDR research grants grew 13% each year between 2022 and 2025, the report says, and the corresponding number of research publications grew at a similar rate.
Funding was largely targeted at a handful of key areas, notably soil carbon sequestration, biochar and forest-based CDR.
DACCS and BECCS only make up a small number of active grants, but together account for around two-fifths of all funding due to “substantially larger” project sizes.
Despite the growth of research grants and scientific publications, the report concludes that early-stage innovation in CDR is “uneven” and says there is “no strong evidence of a step-change”.
It notes that much of the support for CDR has come from projects with a broader focus, rather than those that focus specifically on CDR.
The authors also point to a decline in “inventive activity”, as measured by patenting of CDR-related innovations. While patenting for emissions-cutting technologies in general has been on an upward trajectory, CDR patenting peaked in 2011.
Meanwhile, the report highlights the “remarkable” sustained investment in CDR companies, against a backdrop of falling investment in climate-related technologies. It notes that CDR now accounts for around 3% of overall “climate-tech funding”.
Yet, again, it says future developments remain “uncertain”. Since the previous 2024 “state of CDR” report, companies have scaled back their ambitions and policy reversals – notably in the US – “underscore that funding uncertainty remains a key barrier”. (See: How is policy impacting CDR demand?)
An upward tick in funding in 2025 was driven primarily by a “surge” in grants from predominantly public institutions, as well as $0.5bn in debt financing for a single BECCS project in Sweden.
Reliance on such funding sources “highlight[s] the volatility of the CDR innovation ecosystem”, according to the report.
The report also has a chapter focusing on the voluntary carbon market, which it describes as “propelling most of the current demand for novel CDR”.
The scale of this market remains fairly small, with contracts for 0.04GtCO2 of removals signed last year.
Moreover, the concentration of sales within a small number of buyers – particularly Microsoft – remains a “critical vulnerability”, the authors note.
How is policy impacting CDR demand?
The report analyses CDR policies in G20 nations – which together account for three-quarters of global emissions – to assess how they are acting to support CDR across their economies.
In total, 140 countries have announced net-zero targets, including virtually all of the world’s major emitters. In doing so, the report points out that the governments of these nations have “implicitly included a role for CDR in their climate plans”.
However, this does not always translate into measures specifically designed to scale up CDR.
Only the EU has adopted a binding, quantified removals target into law – namely, the goal to reach 310m tonnes of CO2 equivalent (MtCO2e) of annual net removals in the land sector by 2030.
Overall, conventional CDR is the main focus of policy, with various governments focusing on tree planting to absorb CO2 from the atmosphere.
Among G20 nations, only the UK and Australia have set specific goals to scale up novel CDR, such as BECCS and DACCS, over the coming decade.
The report highlights some nations, including Canada, Germany, Switzerland and the UK, as taking proactive steps to incentivise CDR.
The authors point to national strategies, financial support for CDR and efforts to integrate it into emissions trading systems (ETS) as examples of effective policy making.
(The report also stresses that the US, which was previously a “leader” on CDR, has now “frozen or dismantled funding and support” for CDR under the Trump administration.)
Most of the successful policies highlighted in the report focus on supporting the supply of CDR, with “less attention so far on creating demand”.
This is significant because CDR “generally lacks a natural market”, meaning there are not automatically buyers willing to spend money on emissions removals. Therefore, the authors say, policy interventions are important to create markets and boost demand.
“Compliance” carbon credits – referring to credits that can be used to meet legally mandated emissions targets – provide a way to support demand, according to the report authors.
Only some ETSs, such as those used in New Zealand and Australia, allow the use of credits based on forest-related removals for compliance. (It is worth noting that such credits are controversial, as removals by forests are not always permanent.)
The report also highlights the need for “foundational policies to create a governance framework for CDR, including rules for quantification of removal, guidelines for community engagement and the minimisation of negative environmental impacts”.
The post Q&A: The current state of ‘carbon dioxide removal’ around the world appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Q&A: The current state of ‘carbon dioxide removal’ around the world
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