The UN says carbon removal is necessary

It’s widely accepted that taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere will be essential to mitigate the worst effects of climate change.

As world leaders gather in New York for the United Nations General Assembly and the annual Climate Week NYC, a critical question remains unanswered: Who will pay to remove the CO2?

Carbon removal can’t offer the economic upside of technologies such as electric vehicles, said Adair Turner, co-chair of the Energy Transitions Commission, a coalition of executives from companies including ArcelorMittal SA, HSBC Holdings Plc and Shell Plc.

“When you get to removals, it’s never gonna be a win-win,” Turner, also the former head of Britain’s financial regulator, said in an interview. “You’re doing it to take emissions out, and so somebody has got to pay.”

Scaling up carbon dioxide removal is among four major environmental ambitions that have fallen short, in a world that’s blowing past targets for limiting global temperature rise, according to a report from the Energy Transitions Commission.

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The UN said earlier this month that the world will likely surpass the 2015 Paris Accord’s goal of limiting global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels within the next few years, with current policies putting warming on track for roughly 2.6C.

To bring temperatures back down to 1.5C, some amount of carbon removal is now necessary, the UN said, a comment seen by industry proponents and project developers as an official acknowledgementof the importance of drawing down CO2.

Carbon removal refers to deliberate human technologies, practices and approaches that take CO2 from the atmosphere and store it permanently — or for long periods of time — in rock formations, oceans, soils, trees, or manufactured goods.

Demand for carbon removal credits has fallen in 2026, with just 23 million credits purchased so far this year through Aug. 17, according to a report last month by researcher BloombergNEF. The slowdown was largely driven by reduced purchases from Microsoft Corp., the market’s largest buyer.

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The other three shortfalls identified by the Energy Transitions Commission are the stalled phase-out of coal power and the lack of meaningful progress on curbing methane emissions and stopping deforestation. Even as EVs, solar power, batteries and nuclear generation make gains, tackling these tougher areas remains essential, Turner said.

“Even if tomorrow every vehicle in the world magically went electric, if you didn’t get rid of methane emissions, deforestation, exit coal and start doing some removals, you’re not going get to 1.8C, let alone 1.5C,” he said.

With regard to carbon removal, Turner said governments, companies and philanthropists need to step in to fund the effort — with governments taking the lead. “I don’t exclude the possibility that we’ll get there, but at the moment we’re a long way from that,” he said.

© 2026 Bloomberg

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