Report Calls for More CA Projects to Remove Carbon Dioxide From the Air

If California is going to slow climate change, experts say we'll need to reduce carbon emissions and remove carbon from the atmosphere – so climate advocates are calling for more funding and oversight for carbon dioxide removal.

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Katy Webb, carbon drawdown program coordinator for The Climate Center, said we need to scale up nature-based solutions such as planting trees and restoring coastal ecosystems.

"Nature-based solutions provide so many co-benefits with cleaner air, cleaner water," she said. "These will act as a stopgap and create the resiliency that California communities will need as we continue to see the climate change."

Hybrid solutions include projects to crush rocks and spread them out to speed up the weathering process, which draws down carbon. Industrial solutions could involve direct air capture, which uses machines to move air over a material that reacts with the atmospheric carbon dioxide, then separates it for storage.

Diane Doucette, co-founder and president of the nonprofit Project 2030, said people should participate in upcoming efforts by the California Air Resources Board to develop protocols for carbon dioxide removal.

"What that means is they'll be determining how carbon dioxide removal is measured, verified, monitored and accounted for in a way that really does reduce carbon in the atmosphere," she said. "And we want to make sure they're done safely. Somebody is monitoring them."

The protocol will make it possible for companies that run carbon dioxide removal projects to generate carbon credits in the future. The state has invested close to $9 billion in nature-based carbon dioxide removal since 2021. California allocated $2.8 billion from the state Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund to contribute to the effort.