UK trials start to suck carbon dioxide from the air

Major new trials across the UK should see carbon dioxide be sucked from the air using trees, peat, rock chips, and charcoal in major new trials across the UK.

The £30 million project funded by UK Research and Innovation will test ways to remove CO2 from the atmosphere effectively and affordably on over 100 hectares of land, making it one of the biggest trials in the world.

The trials will include the following:

• degraded peatlands will be re-wetted and replanted in the Pennines and west Wales;
• rock chips that absorb CO2 as they break down in soil will be tested on farms in Devon, Hertfordshire and mid-Wales;
• special charcoal called biochar will be buried at a sewage disposal site, on former mine sites and railway embankments;
• large-scale use of trees to capture carbon will be examined across the UK, including on Ministry of Defence and National Trust land;
• carbon removal potential of energy crops such as willow and miscanthus grass will be measured for the first time at commercial scale.

Professor Cameron Hepburn, at the University of Oxford, who is leading the trials, said: "Nobody really wants to be in the situation of having to suck so much CO₂ from the atmosphere. But that's where we are – we've delayed [climate action] for too long".

He emphasised that cutting emissions from fossil fuel burning as quick as possible remains vital to tackle global heating, and that CO2 removal is not a substitute for reducing emissions.

Scientists at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have concluded there is no way of keeping the global temperature rise to the internationally agreed target of 1.5C without both cutting emissions and removing billions of tonnes of CO2 a year by 2050. The UK's official climate advisers estimate the UK is likely to need to remove about 100m tonnes of CO2 a year by 2050 to reach net zero.

Carbon removal is also deemed essential because it will be difficult to halt all emissions from sectors such as aviation, farming and cement by 2050, and the new trials are part of a £110 Government programme that also includes trials of using technology to scrub CO2 directly from the air.