There is more momentum behind carbon removal today than there was a year ago. As governments start to arrive in Antalya for COP31, they have a real opportunity to make it part of their national strategy, not only as a climate tool, but as an industry to build at home, and a product that can be exported to the world.

The case for doing so was made stronger recently by UNEP’s latest Emissions Gap Report, which accepts that warming will now pass 1.5°C, but sets out a credible path back to it by the end of the century. That path depends first on deep emissions cuts – 45% by 2035 – and then on removing and permanently storing around 320 billion tonnes of CO2 over the century, roughly eight years of global emissions at today’s levels. UNEP is candid that removal at that scale is uncertain. That is exactly why the work to build it needs to happen now.

And governments are not starting from zero. COP30 in Belém gave carbon removal a dedicated pavilion, a place in the Global Climate Action Agenda and a new Global Carbon Harvest Coalition led by Brazil, India and Kenya, and since then more governments have moved from statements to policy. The EU has proposed bringing domestic removals into its emissions trading system and procuring up to 260 Mt of international credits from 2036. The first methodologies under its Carbon Removal Certification Framework (CRCF) are in place. Japan’s GX-ETS became mandatory in April 2026 for the country’s largest emitters, with removal credits eligible for part of their obligation, Canada has launched a CDR procurement programme, and Brazil and China have opened talks on an Article 6 deal that could bring Brazilian removals into China’s carbon market.

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