With countries working toward global net-zero commitments, the need for removing carbon from the atmosphere has never been more urgent. Reducing emissions at the source is critical, and it is also important to have positive solutions to remove CO₂ from the atmosphere and store it long-term.
Before going into more detail, it is important to explain why the debate exists at all. The climate challenge is complex, and so is the path to climate change. That’s why both nature-based and advanced carbon capture technologies continue to receive a lot of attention.
Contrary to popular belief, Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) are not solely reliant on ecosystems to passively absorb carbon. These technologies focus on the restoration, enhancement, and protection of ecosystems to amplify their carbon removal potential. Instead of engineered systems, these approaches optimize the carbon removal processes that are already in place while balancing the ecosystems.
Including but not limited to:
Ecosystems absorb copious amounts of CO2 in tree biomass, roots, waters, and soils. A healthy forest can achieve even more than sequestering carbon. A healthy forest can absorb and sequester even more carbon, support diverse life, sustain water cycles, lower heat, and provide resources for human settlements.
Besides sequestering carbon, NBS provide other valuable services such as improving soil, water, and air quality, and preserving and creating ecosystems and communities resilient to climate change. These many benefits make NBS a great pillar for designing inclusive and sustainable decarbonization approaches.
Direct Air Capture is a more advanced way of capturing carbon. It uses systems designed to capture CO2 directly from the air. It works by using large fans to draw atmospheric air into a capture unit, where CO2 is isolated and removed from other gases using a set of engineered chemical sorbents. The CO2 can be stored in geological reservoirs for a long time or utilized for making synfuels, some other industrial products, or synthetic building materials.
Permanence is the greatest strength of DAC. When coupled with geological sequestration, it creates a near-permanent means of carbon removal, which is enticing for sectors like aviation, cement, and steel that cannot fully decarbonize.
Nonetheless, DAC is challenged by:
Still, DAC continues to attract capital at an unprecedented rate. The next few decades could see the rapid deployment of these technologies as the cost of renewables continues to decline.
1. Potential for Carbon Removal
NBS is immediately deployable and scalable, as the carbon removal capacity of forests, mangroves, and soils is immense. However, long-term effectiveness requires the carbon to be protected as it is vulnerable to reversal from land-use changes and natural disasters.
In contrast, DAC has the potential to store large volumes of carbon permanently, but current capture volumes are negligible. The capture of more significant volumes than currently is also subject to the deployment of significant investment and large amounts of decarbonized energy.
2. Costs and Reach
Almost all regions can access and afford NBS. The majority also provide economic benefits for local communities.
DAC remains one of the priciest carbon removal options, alongside the need for advanced infrastructure, which limits its presence to certain locations.
3. Co-benefits Beyond Carbon
NBS excels here. Improving upon biodiversity, soil stabilization, the restoration of water systems, as well as the social and economic community strengthening.
DAC does drive innovation and industrial development, and creates jobs, though the environmental co-benefits are minimal.
4. Risks and Challenges
NBS are exposed to carbon permanence and scarcity of consistent monitoring due to the threats of fires, pests, drought, and deforestation.
The primary risks of DAC are enormous land demands, high energy consumption, and reliance on a rapidly expanding renewable energy sector.
To achieve net zero, a mix of emission reductions and mass carbon removal is required. There is no unilateral solution. Understanding these differences provides clarity on how both approaches contribute to the larger climate challenge.
NBS provides fast, low-cost, and easy-to-access carbon removal while offering unique social and ecological benefits that DAC systems struggle to provide. They are crucial for net zero, especially for vegetation-rich developing countries.
DAC actively disposes of previously unretrievable emissions and remains at an early (yet promising) stage of development due to the rapid development of renewable energy and declining costs of technology.
Combining NBS and DAC to form a strategy that includes immediate actions and future envisioned development of NBS.
Experts recognize the value in prioritizing NBS in emission reduction for three reasons.
Although maybe still in developmental stages, NBS is already DAC and offers immediate/dependable climate results, societal value, and fossil reserve preservation.
A combination of advanced Carbon Removal and NBS offers promising solutions to the climate walk and is critical to achieving global decarbonization.
Nature-based solutions will provide the most immediate impact on ecosystems and communities, and perform short-term climate actions. Nature-based solutions stand out because of their cost-efficiency, ease of adoption, and wide-ranging ecosystem service benefits.
Emerging direct air capture DAC technologies will also perform an increasingly vital role in alleviating emissions when green energy production and DAC technologies mature.
The most effective immediate climate actions will continue to appear from Nature-based solutions. Nature-based solutions provide immediate and lasting climate benefits and ease the transition to a climate-altered world. For these reasons, NBS are the most pragmatic option among all climate action alternatives.
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