Carbon negative handbook - November 2024

The handbook evaluates six carbon removal methods: BioCCS, afforestation/reforestation, biochar, terrestrial enhanced weathering, DACCS, and soil carbon sequestration. It highlights the trade-offs between permanence, cost, and ecological impact, emphasizing that land-based solutions often conflict with planetary boundaries and food security, while technological solutions like DACCS face high energy and cost barriers. The document recommends prioritizing sustainable feedstocks, rights-based approaches for local communities, and the development of standardized monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) frameworks.

• Biomass with carbon capture and storage (BioCCS) can sequester between 0.5 and 11 GtCO₂/yr by 2050 at a cost of $15-400/tCO₂, but large-scale use of dedicated energy crops conflicts with biodiversity goals and food security due to high water and land requirements.
• Afforestation and reforestation (A/R) offer low implementation costs ($0-240/tCO₂) and significant co-benefits for nature restoration, but they face high reversal risks from wildfires and pests, and may exacerbate food insecurity if they require extensive new land.
• Biochar production, which reached approximately 49,000 t by the end of 2023, is considered cost-efficient and provides agricultural benefits like increased crop yields, though its long-term carbon stability in open fields remains unproven.
• Terrestrial enhanced weathering (TEW) provides highly stable carbon storage (>10,000 years) with no additional land required, but it is hindered by high value chain GHG emissions from mining and grinding minerals.
• Direct air capture with carbon storage (DACCS) is highly scalable (5-40 GtCO₂/yr by 2050) and offers easy MRV, but it is currently expensive ($100-300/tCO₂) and extremely energy-intensive, requiring vast amounts of renewable energy.
• Soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestration can potentially remove 5-40 GtCO₂/yr by 2050, but its efficiency is limited by biophysical constraints and the fact that two-thirds of EU soil ecosystems are currently in poor health and acting as emission sources.

APA

Carbon Market Watch (n.d.). Carbon negative handbook - November 2024. https://carbonmarketwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Factsheets.pdf

Chicago

Carbon Market Watch. Carbon negative handbook - November 2024. n.d. https://carbonmarketwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Factsheets.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Carbon Market Watch |title=Carbon negative handbook - November 2024 |url=https://carbonmarketwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Factsheets.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{carbonmarketwatchndcarbon, author = {{Carbon Market Watch}}, title = {{Carbon negative handbook - November 2024}}, institution = {Carbon Market Watch}, url = {https://carbonmarketwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Factsheets.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }