Scalability for carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies is threatened by a combination of inconsistent regional policies and the high energy demands of complex machinery, according to the authors of the newly released report. While some methods struggle with unpredictable land-use rules, others are hampered by their reliance on unproven technology and the difficulty of accurately measuring how much carbon they actually trap.
The report notes that “DAC faces high technical barriers due to its energy intensity and reliance on immature technologies,” while “BECCS and biochar face significant regional variability in land-use and agricultural policies, complicating scalability in regions with inconsistent regulations.”
In simpler terms, some of these projects require massive amounts of electricity to work, which makes them expensive and hard to build on a large scale. Other methods are slowed down by a patchwork of local laws regarding how land can be used, or by the fact that it is scientifically difficult to prove exactly how much greenhouse gas has been removed from the open environment compared to a controlled factory setting.
The white paper “Carbon Dioxide Removal Technologies: Market Overview and Offtake” was published in March 2026 by the World Economic Forum in Geneva, Switzerland. Prepared in collaboration with Oliver Wyman and ClimeFi, the report maps the evolving financial structures, buyer profiles, and contractual frameworks scaling the global carbon removal industry.
