Carbon Direct, in partnership with the McKnight Foundation, has released a groundbreaking report titled Carbon Dioxide Removal and Environmental Justice in the United States: A landscape analysis of race, class, and environmental burden metrics.
This comprehensive analysis represents the first empirical assessment on the junction between carbon dioxide removal (CDR), project siting, and environmental justice in the United States.
The report offers valuable essential data that can support future informed decisions in climate policy, investments, and CDR project development.
Looking to answer whether CDR projects in the U.S. are disproportionately located in frontline communities, Carbon Direct analyzed 342 CDR projects registered with seven leading voluntary carbon market (VCM) registries.
This data was then combined with records from the Environmental Protection Agency’s EJScreen tool that maps and screens for environmental justice (EJ) in the U.S.
The results published in the report unveil a number of crucial findings.
One such finding is the conclusion that there is no systematic pattern of environmental injustice when siting CDR projects.
Going through the sets of data, the analysis did not find evidence that CDR projects are disproportionately located in low-income or BIPOC communities, which has been an issue with other infrastructures like facilities handling hazardous waste.
While the research did not find such a pattern, it did accentuate that certain CDR projects, spanning nature-based, engineered, and hybrid initiatives, are located near some communities with high environmental challenges.
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This finding highlights the need for elaborate, place-based engagement and precautions around CDR projects that would ensure operations are causing no harm and are delivering benefits.
Considering the still emerging state of the CDR industry, the report points out that now is the time to take proactive steps and shape practices that would prevent injustice in future project siting, engagement, and benefit-sharing.
In its essence, this Carbon Direct report lays an empirically backed baseline for environmental justice in CDR, setting the stage for equitable sector growth.
It also underlines the need for CDR support from philanthropists and private sector investors at a time when shifting U.S. federal priorities are causing uncertainty in this field.
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