🚨New study reveals a major hidden C sink in the deep ocean: ancient talus breccias - piles of broken basalt formed along seafloor faults - can trap & store CO₂ for tens of millions of years, potentially offsetting a significant share of mid-ocean ridge emissions.

DETAILS🧵1/10 2/ Researchers made the discovery while drilling 60-million-year-old seafloor in the South Atlantic.

They found talus breccias containing ~7.5 wt% CO₂ - the highest carbon content ever measured in upper ocean crust, up to *40 times richer than previously sampled basalts.

🚨Soil food webs boost carbon retention in farmlands

A new study reveals that simply returning crop residues to fields can supercharge soil food webs, enabling microbes, nematodes & fungi to lock significantly more photosynthetic C into farmland soils.

Details🧵1/8 #CarbonSink 2/ Researchers from the Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), used field trials and ¹³C isotope tracing to map how carbon fixed by crops travels into soil and through the soil food web.

🚨New research shows how integrating Direct Air Capture (#DAC) with urea production - paired with CO₂ pricing can slash emissions, reach cost parity with fossil-based urea by 2050 & reshape global fertiliser markets through policies like the EU #CBAM.

DETAILS🧵1/9 #CDR 2/ What DAC-urea is?

It's urea fertilizer made with CO₂ pulled directly from the air instead of CO₂ from fossil fuels.

Air-captured CO₂ + green ammonia → urea.

Same fertilizer, but far lower climate impact.

🚨✨𝗛𝗮𝗹𝗳 𝗮 𝗠𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗩𝗶𝗲𝘄𝘀!✨🚨

Our “Carbon Removal Updates Newsletter” community keeps growing, now past 𝟰,𝟬𝟬𝟬 subscribers across every continent. We’ve delivered 146+ weekly CDR updates & reached 𝟱𝟬𝟬,𝟬𝟬𝟬+ total views.

🧵1/10 2/ 𝗚𝗹𝗼𝗯𝗮𝗹 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵

🇺🇸United States: 33% (largest share of subscribers)

🇬🇧 United Kingdom: 13% & 🇩🇪Germany: 8% lead our European readership

🇮🇳 India: 5% tops the Asia-Pacific region

🇨🇦 Canada: 5% represents a significant share of our North American audience

🚨 The Royal Society has published a new briefing today finding that techniques to reflect a small portion of sunlight back into space (#SRM) could help lower global temperatures if deployed worldwide, but cannot replace emissions cuts or fully address climate impacts.

🧵1/7 2/ ➝ The report reviews solar radiation modification (#SRM) approaches, including stratospheric aerosol injection (#SAI) and marine cloud brightening (#MCB), outlining their potential to temporarily reduce warming and associated risks.

🚨🌲 New research reveals that even intact boreal forests, some of the planet’s strongest natural carbon sinks, lose their ability to absorb CO₂ as they age.

Here’s what the scientists found & why it matters for our climate models🧵1/9 #CarbonSink #CarbonRemoval 2/ Boreal forests cover vast regions across Canada, Russia, and Scandinavia and store enormous amounts of carbon in trees and soil.

They’re often seen as stable, long-term carbon sinks, but this study challenges that assumption with new global-scale data.

🚨A major 6-country survey (N=5,310) finds Europeans support -ve emissions to meet climate goals, but strongly prefer nature-based solutions like afforestation over engineered options like Direct Air Capture. Trust hinges on benefits for nature & future generations.

🧵1/10 #CDR 2/ When allocating how to tackle emissions, respondents clearly prioritized immediate mitigation:

• Renewables: 37.3%
• Behavior change: 24.0%
• Nuclear: 20.2%
• NETPs: 18.5%

➡️ This shows people support #CDR, but believe deep emissions cuts must come first.

🚨A new study warns that efforts to cool the planet through stratospheric aerosol injection (#SAI) could face far greater challenges than models predict, from unpredictable monsoon shifts to material shortages & engineering limits, every step adds new risks.

🧵1/8 #SRM 2/ The authors explore both micro-level (engineering) and macro-level (governance & supply) factors that could restrict feasible deployment.

Key finding: these constraints could drastically raise costs, risks, and uncertainty, especially for “solid” (non-sulfate) aerosols.

📝💡𝐖𝐞𝐞𝐤𝐥𝐲 𝐂𝐃𝐑 𝐇𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬💡📝

📰 Here's your round-up of top #CarbonDioxideRemoval News / Developments from this week (13 October - 19 October 2025):

📺:

🧵1/25 Nordbex and Aker Solutions signed an MoU to develop Bio-CCUS plants across Europe.
mynewsdesk.com/se/nordbex-ab/…

🚨Scientists built a device that captures carbon from the seawater and turns it into biodegradable plastic, using bacteria as a living bioreactor.

#CDR #mCDR #CarbonDioxideRemoval #Bioplastics

DETAILS🧵1/8 2/ The system comprises 3 components:

1️⃣ C extraction

Traditional seawater electrolysis systems often fail within hours due to mineral buildup

To solve this, researchers designed a solid-state electrolysis unit that isolates sensitive ions using membranes & a solid electrolyte

🚨French Academy of Sciences has released a new report on #SolarGeoengineering, stressing that the absolute priority must remain reducing GHG emissions via structural changes & accelerating adaptation to climate impacts.

On #SRM, the report offers several recommendations:🧵1/6 2/ SRM Recommendation 1️⃣

Promote an international agreement aimed at prohibit any initiative, public or private, to deploy SRM, regardless of the framework or scale.

To do this, the entire scientific community will have to be involved.

🚨An analysis of forest-based projects funded through the sale of #CarbonCredits shows that 10% of them may have a net warming effect on the climate because of the way they alter the Earth’s #albedo, or how much sunlight is reflected back into space.

DETAILS🧵1/12 2/ Albedo is how much sunlight Earth’s surface reflects vs. absorbs

Forests are darker than grass or snow, meaning they absorb more heat

So when grasslands or snowy areas are turned into forests, Earth’s surface can absorb more heat, partly cancelling out cooling effect of #CDR

🚨New paper argues that rejecting Carbon Dioxide Removal (#CDR) on moral hazard grounds may itself be unjust.

Using a framework of transitional justice, they propose that CDRs can, if carefully governed, form part of a just transition to a livable climate.

🧵1/9 2/ The authors note that with climate overshoot increasingly inevitable, the IPCC and Climate Overshoot Commission both view CDRs as unavoidable.

The question shifts from whether to use CDRs to how to deploy them justly.

🚨The Earth is reflecting less & less sunlight, new study reveals🚨

Satellite data show the planet is reflecting less sunlight than it used to, with the Northern Hemisphere darkening fastest.

This imbalance has big implications for climate and rainfall.🧵1/8 2/ Using 24 years of NASA’s CERES satellite data, scientists found both hemispheres now absorb more solar energy than before.

But the Northern Hemisphere has pulled ahead, darkening faster than the South.

🚨Can buildings remove CO₂ while cooling indoor air?

A new study shows that adding CO₂ capture units (#DAC) to building cooling systems can cut energy use by over 50% & remove atmospheric carbon, even in hot, humid places.

Details🧵1/10 2/ Buildings use a lot of energy. About 37% of global energy & 40% of CO₂ emissions.

Cooling is the biggest part, taking almost 40% of building electricity.

As the planet warms, cooling demand rises, creating a vicious cycle.

🚨A new study presents the 1st structural prototype of a planetary sunshade - a large space-based system at L1 designed to block some sunlight & cool Earth.

Using solar sails, deployable booms & CubeSat-based frames, it outlines a pathway for space-based #geoengineering.🧵1/11 2/ The planetary sunshade would function as a vast array of satellites at the Sun–Earth L1 point, collectively blocking ~1.8% of incoming photons - enough to reduce global temperatures by ~2 °C.

"Unlike #SAI or orbital dust, it promises uniform, reversible cooling."

🚨New Viewpoint published in Frontiers that responds to Siegert et al.’s paper.

While Siegert et al. warn against polar #geoengineering, Moore et al. argue for a compassionate harm-reduction paradigm, keeping geoengineering research open alongside decarbonization.

Details🧵1/12 2/ Siegert et al. [] critically assessed polar geoengineering proposals, urging restraint.

Their case: interventions are risky, may not work, and could distract from the essential task which is deep decarbonization.frontiersin.org/journals/scien…

🚨New Nature Geoscience study shows that blooms of Phaeocystis antarctica (microalgae) in the Southern Ocean ~14,000 yrs ago massively drew down CO₂, stabilizing climate. Their decline today could have global consequences.
#CarbonSink #CarbonDrawdown

Details🧵1/9 2/ Microalgae are pivotal in the Southern Ocean carbon cycle.

A new study from the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) reveals that during the Antarctic Cold Reversal (14.7–12.7k yrs BP), algal blooms slowed the rise of atmospheric CO₂.

🚨New study finds #SolarGeoengineering methods have divergent hydrological outcomes in China.

Only equatorial Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (#SAI) could mitigate the “North-Drought, South-Flood” pattern, while MCB & CCT risk worsening it.

DETAILS🧵1/11 2/ China’s hydroclimate is long shaped by the NDSF pattern: aridity in the north, flooding in the south.

Warming threatens to intensify this divide via glacier retreat and stronger monsoon variability.

How would climate interventions alter this?

🚨Researchers at the KAIST and the @MIT have developed a new fiber-based material that can capture CO2 directly from the air using only small amounts of electricity, potentially lowering the barriers to large-scale deployment of direct air capture (#DAC) technology.

DETAILS🧵1/8 2/ DAC systems, which remove CO2 directly from ambient air, have long been hindered by their high energy requirements.

With atm CO₂ concentrations at less than 400ppm, vast volumes of air must be processed, typically requiring large amounts of heat.

📝💡𝐖𝐞𝐞𝐤𝐥𝐲 𝐂𝐃𝐑 𝐇𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬💡📝

📰 Here's your round-up of top #CarbonDioxideRemoval News / Developments from this week (25 August - 31 August 2025):

🔗:

🧵0/20 Frontier signed a $31.3M deal with Planetary to scale ocean alkalinity enhancement, aiming to remove 115,211 tCO₂ at $270/t from 2026–2030.


1/20frontierclimate.com/writing/planet…