The world is preparing to spend enormous sums removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere while continuing to operate the economic systems responsible for putting it there. Meanwhile, countries such as Pakistan are already paying for the consequences through destroyed infrastructure, agricultural losses, extreme heat and displacement.
This is the extraordinary contradiction at the centre of the emerging carbon-removal economy. Governments, corporations and technology developers are exploring industrial systems capable of extracting carbon dioxide directly from ordinary air, even as protecting existing forests, reducing fossil-fuel consumption and financing climate adaptation remain unresolved challenges.
The scientific case for carbon removal is substantial. So are the economic, engineering and environmental questions surrounding its deployment. What deserves closer examination is whether carbon removal will become a carefully governed component of decarbonisation or an expensive justification for delaying the emissions reductions that remain indispensable.
For Pakistan, this distinction has immediate economic consequences. A country struggling to finance energy infrastructure, protect agricultural production and recover from climate disasters cannot afford a global climate strategy that treats speculative future technological capacity as equivalent to measurable emissions reductions today.
The United Nations Has Acknowledged the Climate Overshoot Problem
On September 2, 2026, the United Nations Environment Programme published Limiting Overshoot: Navigating Exceedance of 1.5°C and Pathways Towards Return.
Its central finding deserves international attention: under existing policies and plausible near-term trajectories, temporarily exceeding the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C warming threshold is now widely assessed as unavoidable.
An overshoot occurs when global average warming exceeds a temperature threshold before potentially declining again. That decline would require substantial emissions reductions and, depending on the pathway, removing more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than humanity continues to emit.
The critical qualification is that returning to a lower global temperature does not necessarily reverse every consequence experienced during the intervening decades. Higher peak warming and longer periods above 1.5°C increase risks to human populations and natural systems. Some impacts may persist even after temperatures decline.
The earlier UNEP Emissions Gap Report 2025 quantified the underlying problem. It projected approximately 2.8°C of warming this century under current policies, compared with 2.3–2.5°C if countries fully implement their assessed climate pledges. These are conditional projections, not predetermined outcomes.
The distinction matters because international climate discussions frequently mix three fundamentally different concepts: existing policies, promised future policies and hypothetical technological breakthroughs.
They are not interchangeable.
| Climate indicator | Published assessment | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Paris Agreement temperature ambition | 1.5°C | The threshold countries are pursuing efforts to limit warming to |
| UNEP 2025 current-policy projection | 2.8°C | Estimated warming under policies assessed in the report |
| UNEP 2025 climate-pledge projection | 2.3–2.5°C | Estimated warming if assessed national commitments are fully implemented |
| Climate Interactive baseline | Approximately 3.3°C | A simulator reference scenario, not an official prediction of current-policy outcomes |
| Required emissions reduction for a UNEP-assessed 1.5°C pathway | 55% by 2035 | Reduction in annual greenhouse gas emissions relative to 2019 |
Sources: UNEP Emissions Gap Report 2025 and Climate Interactive’s September 2026 simulator documentation. Figures describe different scenarios and modelling assumptions and should not be treated as directly equivalent forecasts.
What Climate Interactive Reveals About the System
One particularly useful instrument for understanding these relationships is En-ROADS, developed by Climate Interactive and MIT Sloan.
Rather than examining individual technologies in isolation, the simulator allows users to investigate interactions among energy consumption, electricity generation, electrification, economic activity, deforestation, carbon pricing and carbon removal.
Its underlying approach draws on system dynamics: an analytical framework designed to investigate feedback loops, delays and interactions within complex systems.
The September 2026 version displays approximately 3.3°C of warming in its baseline configuration. However, that figure should not be confused with UNEP’s 2.8°C current-policy estimate. The models answer different questions and employ different assumptions. Climate Interactive’s baseline is particularly useful for exploring the consequences of changing multiple variables rather than presenting one number as humanity’s inevitable destination.
This distinction exposes a weakness in much of the public discussion about climate technology. Installing renewable-energy capacity, electrifying transport, improving industrial efficiency and expanding carbon removal cannot be evaluated independently when each affects energy demand, investment requirements and the performance of the wider system.
For an energy engineer, the important question is not simply whether a technology works. It is whether deploying that technology improves the performance of the entire system under realistic financial, environmental and infrastructure constraints.
Carbon Removal: The Difference Between Scientific Necessity and Industrial Reality
Carbon dioxide removal encompasses several different processes. Some rely on vegetation, soil and ecosystem restoration. Others use industrial equipment, chemical processes, geological storage or methods that accelerate natural mineral reactions.
Direct air capture is particularly interesting because it attempts to extract carbon dioxide from ambient air rather than intercepting concentrated emissions at an industrial facility.
However, the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide is relatively low. Consequently, direct air capture must process substantial quantities of air, requiring specialised equipment, energy and supporting infrastructure.
The technology is technically possible. The unresolved questions concern its cost, deployment speed, energy supply and ability to deliver durable, independently verified removal at enormous scale.
The International Energy Agency has identified atmospheric carbon dioxide’s low concentration as a fundamental reason direct air capture requires more energy and generally costs more than capturing concentrated emissions from industrial facilities. Its published estimates vary substantially according to technology, plant configuration and development stage.
Importantly, carbon capture and carbon removal are not synonymous.
Capturing emissions from a cement factory before they enter the atmosphere may reduce that factory’s emissions. Removing carbon dioxide that is already dispersed throughout the atmosphere is a different undertaking. Furthermore, using captured carbon to manufacture a product does not automatically guarantee permanent storage.
These distinctions become particularly important when companies advertise carbon neutrality through purchased credits.
The Scale of the Carbon Removal Challenge
The second edition of The State of Carbon Dioxide Removal, published in 2024, provides a useful quantitative foundation.
Researchers estimated that approximately two billion tonnes of carbon dioxide were being removed annually through reported conventional removal activities, principally land-management and forestry practices.
By comparison, novel removal approaches collectively accounted for approximately 1.3 million tonnes annually.
The report estimated that pathways consistent with the Paris Agreement could require approximately seven to nine billion tonnes of annual carbon removal by mid-century. These are scenario-dependent requirements, not a fixed engineering specification.
| Carbon removal category | Annual quantity reported in the 2024 assessment | Important qualification |
|---|---|---|
| Conventional carbon removal | Approximately 2 billion tonnes of CO₂ | Predominantly forestry and land-management activities |
| Novel carbon removal | Approximately 1.3 million tonnes of CO₂ | Includes multiple emerging technologies, not direct air capture alone |
| Mid-century removal in assessed Paris-consistent pathways | Approximately 7–9 billion tonnes of CO₂ | Depends on the emissions pathway and sustainability assumptions |
Source: The State of Carbon Dioxide Removal, second edition, 2024. Conventional removal estimates should not be confused with the total carbon absorbed naturally by the world’s unmanaged forests, vegetation and oceans.
These figures reveal the magnitude of the engineering challenge.
Even substantial percentage growth in emerging carbon-removal technologies would initially represent a relatively small absolute contribution. Industrial expansion would require investment in manufacturing, electricity generation, heat supply, transportation infrastructure, geological storage, measurement systems and long-term monitoring.
This is precisely why reducing emissions now remains so important: every tonne that never enters the atmosphere is one fewer tonne potentially requiring expensive removal later.
The Energy Paradox: Cleaning the Atmosphere Requires Additional Clean Electricity
Direct air capture introduces a particularly important question for countries already struggling to finance their electricity transitions.
Where will the energy come from?
Industrial carbon-removal facilities require electricity, heat or both. Their actual requirements depend on the technology employed, local environmental conditions, system design and available energy infrastructure.
A carbon-removal project powered by emissions-intensive electricity could significantly undermine its own environmental benefits.
Conversely, supplying such facilities with additional low-carbon electricity could make their operation more environmentally effective, provided the full lifecycle emissions of the project are accounted for.
However, additional renewable generation comes with an opportunity cost.
If a developing country has limited capital and electricity infrastructure, it must evaluate whether its next renewable-energy investment would deliver greater near-term benefits by displacing fossil-fuel generation, improving grid reliability, electrifying industry or supplying an industrial carbon-removal facility.
