A new report by African Tech Futures Lab (ATFL) suggests that Africa need to adopt a selective, place- and pathway-specific engagement with carbon dioxide removal (CDR).

Supported by the Schmidt Family Foundation and authored by Trisha Patel and Rose M. Mutiso, the analysis is part of ATFL’s “CDR in Africa” report series, which also includes other works titled “Carbon Dioxide Removal: A Primer” and “Consultation Methodology Note.”

In this report, named The Future of Carbon Dioxide Removal in Africa, the authors stress that the choices made now will determine how Africa will participate in the global CDR market in the future. 

To collect these insights, the authors interviewed a range of stakeholders, including operators, policy/practitioners, investors, representatives from academia and research, philantrophists and adjacent-sector experts.

Analyzing the received feedback, the authors distilled five key takeaways for carbon dioxide removal development on the African continent. 

One of the key findings is that there is no single African CDR pathway. The authors say that the broad claims about the continent’s land, minerals, biomass, renewable energy, or geological potential bypass important differences between places and technologies. 

Feasibility, climate integrity, and public value, the publication highlights, depend on the specific method, location, infrastructure, institutions, resources, trade-offs, and safeguards involved.  

While CDR could enrich Africa with climate finance, agricultural productivity, nature restoration, waste management, jobs, and industrial learning, the report points out that these benefits do not follow automatically from a CO2 removal project. 

Each CDR initiative needs to clearly state who benefits from it, how those benefits will be measured, and whether carbon removal offers better utilization of land, energy, water, biomass, capital, and public attention than available alternatives.

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