This shouldn’t be news. Scientists have known this day was coming for years, and in 2018 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) first explicitly incorporated carbon dioxide removal (CDR) into its global pathways, recognizing that reducing emissions as fast as possible was no longer enough. We are past the point of asking whether carbon removal is necessary to avoid the worst human and economic costs of climate change. The only question now is whether we will build the industry fast enough to contain the overshoot we are already living through.
Removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere isn't a silver bullet. It can't replace rapid decarbonization of our energy systems or fix ecosystems overnight. But treating CDR as an alternative to mitigation fundamentally misunderstands the moment we are in — the legacy of years of inaction is already in the atmosphere, even if we were to stop polluting tomorrow.
We are running a three-way relay race: mitigation, adaptation and carbon removal. Dropping the baton on deep emissions cuts guarantees catastrophic warming; dropping the baton on adaptation leaves communities defenseless; and dropping the baton on carbon removal leaves us trapped in an overshoot we cannot reverse. All three must proceed concurrently.
The good news is that Canada is uniquely positioned to lead this third leg of the race, as we are actively building a national CDR industry. From direct air capture and innovation hubs in Alberta to river and ocean alkalinity projects in Nova Scotia and biochar operations across the Prairies, Canadian developers are already moving from labs to commercial deployments. Much of that build-out draws on a workforce this country already has: chemical engineers, geologists, drilling specialists and pipeline engineers whose skills transfer directly from oil and gas, chemical manufacturing and power generation.
In addition to having some of the world’s leading CDR researchers and engineers, Canada possesses world-class geological infrastructure. Beneath Saskatchewan, Alberta and Manitoba sit saline aquifers with roughly 389 gigatonnes of prospective CO2 storage capacity. To put that in perspective, global fossil emissions sit at roughly 38 gigatonnes per year. Western Canada's potential underground storage alone could theoretically hold a decade's worth of the current global emissions.
Amid global volatility, international companies are choosing Canada by strategy, not coincidence, as both a deployment site and an investment destination. Global giants such as Climeworks have established Canadian headquarters in Calgary, while developers including Arca and UNDO are locking in long-term removal agreements with corporate buyers, including Microsoft.
Despite strong market momentum, with durable CDR purchases tripling globally in 2025 and the corporate buyer pool expanding rapidly, the main obstacles to this Canadian economic opportunity are delay and pessimism.
We cannot afford delay from those who use future technologies as an excuse to postpone industrial decarbonization today. Nor can we afford the doom that has some throwing up their hands because climate thresholds have already been crossed. Or the critics who insist that building a carbon removal industry “distracts” from cutting emissions. In our overshoot reality, that kind of purity dogma is just another form of doom: a reason to stop building instead of adapting to the reality we face.
Recent steps, including Canada's bilateral agreement with Australia on CDR cooperation, federal procurement calls and a newly announced framework to let Canadian companies trade in international carbon markets, show that policy foundations are taking shape. But these advances will only be successful if they build on a stable foundation of industrial carbon pricing, functioning and sound carbon markets and governments committed to meeting the moment.
Sitting on the sidelines while international competitors in Europe and Australia race to build this critical industry is environmental abdication, rather than stewardship. Canada cannot afford to drop the baton at this key moment. The world needs Canadian leadership to build an industry that can contain our failure to cut emissions fast enough. The only question is: will Canada stand up and seize this opportunity?
