The Institute for Carbon Removal Law and Policy is a research center dedicated to assessing the social, legal, ethical, and political implications of carbon removal technologies and practices.

Why does carbon removal matter?

Together with traditional mitigation actions, including cutting greenhouse gas emissions, carbon removal may help the world avoid dangerous climate change impacts. There will be good and bad ways to develop and use particular carbon removal options. We know that carbon removal cannot act as a panacea or “solve” climate change. This emerging field is fraught with uncertainties, both in terms of the potential risks associated with large-scale deployment of many of these approaches as well as the ultimate potential of carbon removal. None of these technologies are yet proven to work at scale, and each raises a set of environmental and social benefits and risks that are still poorly understood. The Institute for Carbon Removal Law and Policy is dedicated to developing a comprehensive set of tools to assess these technologies and practices, individually and as a suite, at local, national, and global levels.