Biodiversity implications of land-intensive carbon dioxide removal

Prütz, Ruben, Rogelj, Joeri, Ganti, Gaurav, Price, Jeff, Warren, Rachel, Forstenhäusler, Nicole, Wu, Yazhen, Augustynczik, Andrey Lessa Derci, Wögerer, Michael, Krisztin, Tamás, Havlík, Petr, Kraxner, Florian, Frank, Stefan, Hasegawa, Tomoko, Doelman, Jonathan C., Daioglou, Vassilis, Humpenöder, Florian, Popp, Alexander and Fuss, Sabine (2026) Biodiversity implications of land-intensive carbon dioxide removal. Nature Climate Change, 16 (2). pp. 155-163. ISSN 1758-678X

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Abstract

Pathways consistent with global climate objectives typically deploy billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) from land-intensive methods such as forestation and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage. Such large-scale deployment of land-intensive CDR may have negative consequences for biodiversity. Here we assess scenarios across five integrated assessment models and show that scenarios consistent with limiting warming to 1.5 °C allocate up to 13% of global areas of high biodiversity importance for land-intensive CDR. These overlaps are distributed unevenly, with higher shares in low- and middle-income countries. Understanding the potential conflicts between climate action and biodiversity conservation is crucial. An illustrative analysis shows that if current biodiversity hotspots were protected from land-use change, over half the land allocated for forestation and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage in the assessed scenarios would be unavailable unless synergies between climate and conservation goals are leveraged. Our analysis also indicates CDR-related biodiversity benefits due to avoided warming.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2026.
Uncontrolled Keywords:	environmental science (miscellaneous),social sciences (miscellaneous),sdg 13 - climate action,sdg 15 - life on land,4* ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/2300/2301
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences University of East Anglia Research Groups/Centres > Theme - ClimateUEA
UEA Research Groups:	University of East Anglia Schools > Faculty of Science > Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
Related URLs:	http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?...
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	23 Feb 2026 16:30
Last Modified:	01 Mar 2026 07:30
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/102023
DOI:	10.1038/s41558-026-02557-5

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