Using Carbon Dioxide Removal for a Habitable Post-2050 Net-Zero Emission World: Contributions and Limitations

[Geoengineering News]

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11802-026-6228-5

Authors: Xin Cui, Jianping Li & Ellias Yuming Feng 

23 January 2026

Abstract

United Nations (UN) encourages sovereign states to take prompt and concrete measures to accomplish net-zero emissions by year 2050, requesting carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies to be prepared and implemented in such ambitious climate action roadmap. However, whether CDR technologies should be further promoted or discontinued post net-zero emission year remains unclear. In this Earth-system modelling research, we compare UN-suggested 2050 net-zero emission scenario against other common climate mitigation scenarios outlined by shared social-economic pathways (SSPs). We also simulate continued CDR implementations after net-zero emissions, which is hypothetically achieved in year 2050 and 2070 respectively, to investigate how CDR can impact the global climate throughout the whole 21st and 22nd centuries. The modelling results find if the 2050 UN net-zero emission goal is accomplished, the global average surface air temperature (SAT) in the end of 21st century is around 1.5 °C higher compared to the pre-industrial level, promising an Earth environment more habitable than other scenarios without CDR. When CDR is applied to remove equal amount of anthropogenic CO2 emissions since industrial revolution, it restores the global average SAT close to pre-industrial level of 13.5 °C. However, CDR-induced global carbon distribution within ocean, atmosphere, and land pools is different from the pre-industrial condition, causing reduced atmospheric CO2 concentration by 9 to 38 ppm compared to the pre-industrial cases, and more alkalinized ocean surface with pH increase of 0.004 to 0.024. This study affirms CDR cannot be viewed as a reversed process to anthropogenic CO2 emissions, accordingly climate policies to overcome the uncertainties after for late 21st century still require careful trade-offs for the decarbonation and the cost-benefits of CDR measures.

Source: Springer Nature Link