Carbon Removal in Forests and Farms in the United States

This working paper, part of the World Resources Institute's CarbonShot series, examines the potential for carbon removal through forests and farms in the United States. It identifies the technical and financial barriers to large-scale deployment and discusses land-use trade-offs associated with different carbon-beneficial practices.

• The United States has untapped potential for carbon removal in the land sector, estimated to be in the range of hundreds of millions of metric tons of CO2 per year. The majority of this potential is associated with reforestation on nonagricultural lands, though additional potential may exist in soil carbon management that is currently omitted from technical estimates due to a lack of field data.
• While the marginal costs for implementing these carbon removal approaches are generally under US$50 per metric ton of CO2, large-scale deployment is hindered by several factors: diffuse landownership, competition for land for global food and fiber markets, limited public funding, and scientific challenges regarding measurement and monitoring.
• Carbon removal practices are categorized by their impact on food and fiber security. Some practices, such as extending timber harvest rotations or restoring croplands to forest or grassland, may reduce supply and cause indirect land-use change. Other practices that do not reduce supply include reforestation on nonagricultural lands (e.g., urban areas, roadsides, abandoned mines), forest carbon management (e.g., reducing wildfire risk, restocking stands), agricultural practices that increase soil carbon without shifting land use, and integrating trees into agricultural lands.
• Global climate models indicate that aggressive emissions reductions alone are insufficient to meet Paris Agreement targets. To limit warming to 1.5°C or 2°C, the world must achieve net-negative emissions by the second half of the century, requiring carbon removal at a gigaton scale (billions of metric tons per year) to offset hard-to-eliminate emissions and compensate for temperature overshoots.

APA

World Resources Institute (n.d.). Carbon Removal in Forests and Farms in the United States. https://www.wri.org/research/carbon-removal-forests-and-farms-united-states

Chicago

World Resources Institute. Carbon Removal in Forests and Farms in the United States. n.d. https://www.wri.org/research/carbon-removal-forests-and-farms-united-states.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Resources Institute |title=Carbon Removal in Forests and Farms in the United States |url=https://www.wri.org/research/carbon-removal-forests-and-farms-united-states |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldresourcesinstitutendcarbon, author = {{World Resources Institute}}, title = {{Carbon Removal in Forests and Farms in the United States}}, institution = {World Resources Institute}, url = {https://www.wri.org/research/carbon-removal-forests-and-farms-united-states}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }