Australia's carbon sequestration potentialA new assessment of Australia's carbon sequestration potential.
Carbon sequestration is the process of capturing and removing of carbon dioxide from Earth's atmosphere. This report, prepared for the Climate Change Authority and Clean Energy Regulator, provides an assessment of Australia's carbon sequestration potential, highlighting the opportunities capturing and storing atmospheric carbon dioxide can play in helping Australia reach net zero emissions.
The report, led by CSIRO's Towards Net Zero Mission and CarbonLock Future Science Platform, brings together scientists with expertise across a range of nature-based and engineered sequestration technologies, to look at their sequestration potential, barriers to uptake, and co-benefits.Findings
The report finds that nature-based technologies such as permanent plantings, plantation and farm forestry, and soil carbon currently provide significant potential; as does Australia's vast geological storage capacity.
Biochar, mineral carbonation and DAC have significant sequestration potential but are associated with higher costs; these are areas where investment into research to bring down the unit cost associated with capture could increase national sequestration potential.
This report will inform an Insights Paper on carbon sequestration being published by the Climate Change Authority, which will help inform the advice to government on Australia’s 2035 emissions reduction target.