Carbon Removal in Forests and Farms in the United States

The document assesses the capacity of U.S. forests and farms to remove carbon dioxide, estimating the potential at hundreds of millions of metric tons per year. It highlights that while marginal costs are generally below US$50/tCO2, scaling requires overcoming challenges in measurement, monitoring, land-use competition, and funding. The paper distinguishes between practices that may reduce food and fiber supply and those that do not, such as reforestation on nonagricultural lands and improved forest carbon management.

• The United States has untapped potential for carbon removal in the land sector, estimated to be on the order of hundreds of millions of metric tons of CO2 per year, with the majority of this potential linked to reforestation on nonagricultural lands.
• Large-scale deployment of carbon removal in U.S. forests and farms is hindered by several factors: competition for land for global food and fiber markets, diffuse landownership, limited public funding, and scientific and technological challenges regarding measurement and monitoring.
• Certain carbon removal practices, such as extending timber harvest rotation lengths or restoring croplands to forestland or grassland, may reduce the supply of food or fiber and potentially cause indirect land-use change.
• Several carbon removal measures can be implemented without reducing the supply of food or fiber, including reforestation on nonagricultural lands (such as urban areas, parks, and abandoned mine lands), forest carbon management (such as reducing wildfire risk and restocking understocked stands), agricultural practices that build soil carbon without shifting land use, and integrating trees into agricultural lands.
• While the marginal costs of implementing these land-based carbon removal approaches are generally below US$50/tCO2, achieving the necessary scale requires coordinated action from federal, state, and local government agencies, the private sector, and landowners.

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} }