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Australia's Carbon Removal Roadmap: 2026 Update
Australia is working to reach net zero emissions by 2050, as enshrined in law with an interim target of a 43% emissions reduction by 2030 (from 2005 levels). Achieving net zero means that any greenhouse gases we still emit must be balanced by removing an equivalent amount from the atmosphere.
Even with aggressive emission cuts, some sectors (like heavy industry, cement, and agriculture) will always have hard-to-abate emissions that are difficult or very costly to eliminate entirely.
Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is designed to address residual emissions that are difficult to eliminate through current mitigation strategies. By extracting CO₂ from the atmosphere and storing it in long-term sinks, CDR offers a mechanism to balance unavoidable emissions and contribute to net-zero targets.
However, carbon removal is not a substitute for reducing emissions at the source.
Deep emissions cuts remain the top priority, and carbon removal is meant to complement those cuts, not replace them. In the near term, Australia and other countries must focus on cutting pollution while ramping up removal methods for the remaining CO₂ that will inevitably persist.
Over the longer term, though, carbon removal will play a key role in balancing out residual emissions and could even deliver net-negative outcomes (reducing the total CO₂ in the atmosphere) needed to stabilise the climate.
The Importance of Carbon Removal for Australia
As previously mentioned, Australia’s commitment to net zero by 2050 has shone a spotlight on carbon removal as an important part of its climate strategy. The government’s Climate Change Act makes clear that net zero emissions means that the amount of greenhouse gas emissions emitted into the atmosphere is balanced by the amount removed. Even after maximal adoption of renewables, electrification, and efficiency, there will be residual greenhouse gases that must be counteracted by pulling CO₂ out of the atmosphere. These residual emissions come from sources like:
Industrial processes (e.g. making cement releases CO₂ from chemical reactions that can’t be fully prevented).
Agriculture (e.g. methane from livestock and nitrous oxide from soils – very hard to eliminate entirely).
Aviation and heavy transport (where zero-carbon technologies are still emerging).
Data centers and IT – a rapidly growing sector. In fact, data centers alone could account for about 6% of electricity demand by 2030 on Australia’s east coast grid (up from about 2% today), and around 12% by 2050, which if not matched with clean power or offsets, translates into significant emissions. This spike is driven by our expanding digital economy and AI – data centers need enormous power, and if that power isn’t 100% renewable, the carbon footprint soars.
The concept of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) refers to a suite of methods that actively remove CO₂ from the air and durably store it so it can’t re-enter the atmosphere. This is distinct from traditional carbon capture and storage (CCS), which typically means capturing CO₂ from an industrial source (like a power station’s exhaust) before it escapes, and pumping it underground.
CDR, by contrast, is about pulling CO₂ that’s already in the atmosphere (or balancing out diffuse emissions). Australia recognises both approaches as part of “carbon management”: using technologies to remove, capture, reuse or store carbon that would otherwise contribute to climate change.
Examples range from direct air capture machines that act like giant filters for the sky, to using plants and soils to soak up CO₂. In all cases, the idea is to prevent that carbon from contributing to global warming.
Australia has strong incentives to lead in carbon removal, beyond just meeting its own targets. The country’s geography and resources give it some unique advantages. Australia has abundant land, sunshine, and wind, which can provide the clean energy and space needed for large-scale CO₂ removal projects. It also boasts extensive geological formations suitable for storing CO₂ underground (a byproduct of its experience with gas and oil reservoirs) and a large biomass resource from agriculture and forestry that can be harnessed for carbon storage.
These factors mean Australia could not only offset its own emissions but potentially offer carbon removal services at scale, a future where Australia becomes a net negative emitter, storing more carbon than it emits, and possibly selling carbon removal credits abroad. In fact, a recent roadmap suggests Australia could surpass its domestic carbon removal needs and even help other nations, thanks to its ample capacity.
Australia’s Carbon Removal Roadmap (2024–2026)
To map out this potential, CSIRO (Australia’s national science agency) released the Australian Carbon Dioxide Removal Roadmap in late 2025. This comprehensive roadmap, developed with support from the federal Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW) and several state governments, provides a strategic look at emerging CDR technologies and how they could be scaled up in Australia.
Its key findings are:
Significant Removal Potential: Under conservative assumptions, Australia has the capacity for up to 330 million tonnes (Mt) of CO₂ removals per year by 2050 using novel CDR approaches. For perspective, that is over 60% of Australia’s current annual emissions. In a high-ambition scenario, the capacity could nearly triple to 900 Mt per year by 2050 – far more than Australia’s expected residual emissions, meaning we could remove more CO₂ than we emit, if we really pushed the envelope.
Net-Zero and Beyond: Even using only a portion of that 330 Mt capacity, Australia could meet its net-zero 2050 requirements for balancing residual emissions. In fact, combining this “novel” CDR with conventional methods (like tree planting), Australia could potentially offset all its emissions and go net-negative, removing additional CO₂ that could offset other countries’ emissions. This highlights a strategic opportunity: developing carbon removal at scale could become an export industry or at least a major climate service Australia provides.
Projects Already Underway: The analysis identified 25 pilot or early-stage CDR projects already active around Australia in these novel categories. These include research trials and demonstrations of technologies like direct air capture units, bioenergy with carbon capture, biochar production systems, enhanced weathering field trials, and more.
Enabling Environment Needed: Achieving this potential is not automatic. The roadmap emphasises the need for investment this decade in R&D and first-of-a-kind projects to improve the maturity of these technologies. It calls for a well-designed enabling environment, meaning supportive policies, clear regulations, incentives (like carbon credit mechanisms), infrastructure, and community engagement – to guide and accelerate the new CDR industry. Carbon removal must be scaled responsibly, with strong environmental and social safeguards. Community partnership is highlighted as essential, since regional opportunities (for example, using local biomass or local geological storage) will only succeed if communities are on board.
Complementing Emissions Reduction: Crucially, the roadmap echoes that CDR complements emissions cuts. It is not an excuse to delay decarbonising the economy. Instead, it’s a parallel effort: “capture what cannot be cut”. This balanced approach ensures Australia reduces emissions as much as possible and uses CDR for the rest, aligning with global best practice to meet the Paris Agreement goals.
Australia’s Carbon Removal Roadmap at a Glance
To better understand what these CDR approaches are, the roadmap focuses on four main “novel” methods (beyond traditional tree-planting and land carbon storage).
The table below summarises these approaches, how they work, and their status or potential in Australia:
Carbon Removal Approach | How It Works | Status/Potential in Australia |
Direct Air Capture and Storage (DAC) | Uses chemical filters or sorbents to extract CO₂ directly from ambient air, then concentrates and pumps it deep underground for permanent storage. Essentially, giant machines scrub CO₂ from the sky. | Early-stage – a few pilot units and research projects are in progress (often in partnership with universities and CSIRO). Australia’s ample land and renewable energy resources could support large DAC facilities in the future. But costs are currently high, so investment in innovation is needed before DAC scales up. The government is supporting R&D, including international partnerships on DAC technology. |
Biomass Carbon Removal & Storage (BiCRS) | Uses biomass (plant materials) to capture CO₂ via photosynthesis, then converts that biomass into a stable form of carbon and/or captures the CO₂ released from it. One route is biochar: heating organic waste (e.g. wood, crop residues) in low oxygen to make a charcoal-like solid that locks away much of the carbon. Another route is bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS): burning biomass for energy and capturing the CO₂ emissions for storage. | Several projects are underway. For example, researchers and startups are converting agricultural waste and invasive plants into biochar instead of letting them decay or burn. This yields carbon-rich biochar that can be buried or plowed into soils, storing carbon for decades to centuries. Australia’s farming and forestry sectors produce a huge amount of biomass residue that could be used for Biochar/BECCS. The roadmap indicates biomass carbon removal (including biochar) could be a significant slice of the ~330 Mt annual CDR potential by 2050. Co-benefits like improved soil health from biochar make this approach attractive. |
Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement (OAE) | Involves adding alkaline materials (like ground olivine minerals or other base substances) to ocean waters to enhance the ocean’s natural uptake of CO₂. The added alkalinity causes seawater to absorb more CO₂ from the air and converts it to stable bicarbonate, storing carbon in the ocean for thousands of years. | Experimental stage globally. Australia, with its vast coastline, is exploring this in research programs. Small-scale trials (e.g. test beds on parts of the Great Barrier Reef or in Australian coastal waters) are likely in coming years to assess effectiveness and environmental safety. OAE could potentially remove large amounts of CO₂ if scaled (the oceans are huge), but careful study is needed to avoid ecological side effects. The roadmap highlights OAE as a high-potential but still very uncertain approach. |
Enhanced Rock Weathering (ERW) | Mimics and speeds up the natural process of CO₂ sequestration by rocks. Crushed silicate rocks (like basalt or mine tailings rich in minerals) are spread on soils or fields; these minerals react with CO₂ in rainwater and the air, forming stable carbonate minerals or bicarbonate in water. Over time, the carbon is locked into new rock or carried to the oceans in a harmless form. | Pilot trials are in progress on agricultural land – for instance, spreading rock dust on sugarcane farms or rangelands to test CO₂ uptake and any crop benefits. Australia’s mining industry produces a lot of suitable alkaline residues (like magnesium silicate mine waste) that could be repurposed for carbon capture. Regions with ultramafic rocks or mine sites in WA and QLD are of interest. ERW could be a win-win: it might improve soil fertility slightly while storing carbon. The CSIRO roadmap estimates substantial long-term potential from ERW given Australia’s geology, but like OAE it needs more research on efficiency and costs. |
Conventional vs Novel
It’s worth noting that Australia already has significant conventional CDR happening through its land sector. Programs like the government’s Emissions Reduction Fund (now the Climate Solutions Fund) have incentivised reforestation, soil carbon sequestration, and better land management, issuing millions of Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) for those activities. Trees, soils, and coastal ecosystems (blue carbon) act as natural carbon sinks.
These methods have provided the bulk of Australia’s carbon offsets to date. However, they have limits: land is finite, and climate impacts (droughts, bushfires) can reverse stored carbon. The novel CDR technologies in the roadmap are meant to complement these nature-based solutions, not replace them, providing more durable and scalable removal options alongside the ongoing efforts in agriculture and forestry.
Australia’s Government Support for the Carbon Removal Industry
Australia’s government recognises that to unlock the carbon removal industry’s potential, it must create the right policy and investment environment. Several supportive moves are underway:
Funding for Innovation: Through agencies like the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC), the government has been directing funds into carbon removal projects. For example, the CEFC has committed financing to large-scale tree planting and carbon forestry projects, and it is now looking at emerging removal tech as part of its mandate to drive climate solutions. In 2025, the CEFC announced funding for programs to develop carbon sinks in the land sector, and it signaled openness to novel removal technologies as they become commercially viable. We can expect public-private partnerships to grow – where the government co-funds pilot plants for DAC, bio-refineries for BECCS, or research into ocean and mineral methods.
New Carbon Credit Methods: The Emissions Reduction Assurance Committee (ERAC), which oversees the integrity of ACCUs, has been tasked with accelerating the development of new carbon credit methodologies. In late 2024, it ran a special “proponent-led” process calling for ideas from industry and researchers for new methods. Out of dozens of proposals, several nature-based methods were selected first (like improved native forest management), but engineered methods like biochar are in the pipeline. The goal is to ensure that as methods like biochar and DAC become measurable and robust, they can generate ACCUs, which in turn companies can buy to meet compliance or voluntary climate goals.
State-Level Initiatives: Some state governments are also jumping in. For instance, Western Australia and Queensland have significant mining sectors and are interested in mineral carbonation (using mine waste to store CO₂) as a form of removal. South Australia, with its vast sun-baked lands and geological basins, is eyeing DAC and underground storage. States have provided funding for feasibility studies – for example, examining if exhausted gas fields in WA’s Pilbara could be repurposed to store CO₂ from DAC plants in the future. New South Wales has supported biochar through its climate programs, seeing it as a tool for both emissions and soil health. This multi-level government engagement creates a patchwork of opportunities for businesses around the country.
Research and Development: The roadmap itself is part of a broader CarbonLock research program run by CSIRO. Government-funded labs and universities are working on technical breakthroughs, from more efficient capture materials to better monitoring and verification techniques. One challenge with CDR is proving that a tonne of CO₂ removed is gone for good. Thus, MRV (measurement, reporting, verification) technologies are a key area of development.
In summary, Australia’s updated carbon removal outlook (2024–2026) is one of cautious optimism and active experimentation. The foundation is being laid through research and policy; now the task is to build on it – scaling up pilot projects, refining methods, ensuring integrity, and driving costs down. If we succeed, Australia could neutralise its hardest-to-abate emissions and even go beyond, offering carbon removal as a service to the world. There is no shortage of work to do, but the roadmap gives direction. The coming years will tell how fast and how far we can travel on this journey to net zero and net negative emissions.
If your team is developing carbon removal projects or exploring new roles in emerging CDR markets, having a clear view of emissions data and carbon flows is essential - not just for integrity, but for eligibility.
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