Carbon removal is falling short: direct air capture makes up just 0.1 percent of current CDR efforts

A new report on carbon dioxide removal shows that current efforts remove about 2.2 billion metric tons of CO2 per year, roughly 5 percent of global annual emissions. Novel methods like direct air capture account for only 0.1 percent of that total. The report says CDR would need to scale as fast as solar panel adoption to make a real impact. Microsoft, which bought over 80 percent of novel carbon credits funding these projects, stopped purchasing new credits in April 2026. This raises questions about market stability for direct air capture and other high-tech removal methods. Scientists still call CDR unavoidable for hard to decarbonize sectors like agriculture, but emphasize it must complement deep emission cuts, not replace them.