Big Businesses Are Doing Carbon Dioxide Removal All Wrong

The article highlights a critical gap between corporate climate commitments and effective carbon dioxide removal (CDR) strategies necessary to achieve global net-zero emissions by 2050. According to a report from the NewClimate Institute, many of the world’s largest companies are relying heavily on short-term, nondurable carbon removal methods such as tree planting and soil carbon storage, which only sequester carbon for decades or a few centuries. In contrast, durable CDR techniques—such as injecting CO2 into geological formations or mineralizing it into rock, which can lock away carbon for at least 1,000 years—remain underutilized and currently represent just 0.1 percent of global carbon removal efforts. The report warns that this reliance on nondurable methods without deep decarbonization risks undermining the credibility of corporate net-zero claims. The study examined 35 major companies across sectors including agrifood, aviation, automobiles, fashion, fossil fuels, tech, and utilities. Tech companies, led by Microsoft