Recently, the Land Gap 2025 Report released at COP30 warned that global climate pledges are  increasingly relying on Land-Based Carbon Removal (LBCR).

About Land Gap 2025 Report

• Introduction: The Land Gap 2025 Report assesses whether countries’ net-zero strategies realistically align with available land and ecological sustainability.
• Published By: The report is led by the University of Melbourne with contributions from global climate policy researchers.
• Significance: It highlights the widening gap between land-based  carbon removal plans and the urgent need for protecting existing forests, offering critical evidence for climate negotiations.

Key Findings of the Land Gap 2025 Report

• Massive Land Requirement: The report states that climate pledges will require more than one billion hectares of land (an area larger than Australia) to fulfil promised carbon removals.
• Overreliance on Unrealistic Solutions: Governments are relying excessively on Land-Based Carbon Removal (LBCR) instead of prioritising forest protection and natural ecosystem restoration.
• Risk of Social and Ecological Harm: Many LBCR plans risk replicating “green colonialism,” where communities bear the burdens of climate solutions without receiving benefits.
  • It warns that large-scale land use for bioenergy, carbon capture and tree-planting could displace vulnerable communities and worsen food insecurity.
• Neglect of Forest Conservation: The study stresses that existing forests are being ignored in climate plans despite being the most effective and immediate carbon sinks.
• Economic Drivers of Forest Loss: It notes that debt burdens, trade systems and economic structures push many countries to exploit forests to sustain their economies, undermining sustainability goals.

About Land-Based Carbon Removal (LBCR)

• Land-Based Carbon Removal (LBCR) refers to a broad set of climate mitigation strategies that rely on terrestrial ecosystems such as forests, soils, wetlands, peatlands, and agricultural landscapes to absorb and store atmospheric carbon dioxide.
• These nature-based or hybrid techniques form a core component of many national climate pledges under the Paris Agreement, but their large-scale application raises concerns about land availability and ecological impacts.

Methods of LBCR

• Reforestation and Afforestation: These are among the most widely promoted carbon removal strategies. 
  • As per IPCC estimates, they can mitigate 0.5 — 10.1 gigatonnes of CO₂ annually, though large plantations may compete with food crops and biodiversity-rich areas.
• Soil Carbon Sequestration: This involves increasing soil organic carbon through practices like no-till farming, cover cropping, and organic amendments. While it improves soil fertility, carbon gains can be easily reversed by erosion or drought.
• Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS): Energy crops (e.g., silvergrass) are cultivated, burned for energy, and the emitted CO₂ is stored underground. 
  • BECCS is highly land- and water-intensive, often risking displacement of communities.
• Geologic Carbon Sequestration: Captured CO₂ is injected deep underground into porous rock formations, requiring strong monitoring to prevent leakage.
• Biochar: Biomass is burned in low-oxygen environments to create stable carbon that, when added to soil, improves fertility and locks carbon for centuries.
• Enhanced Weathering: Crushed reactive minerals are spread on land to accelerate natural CO₂ absorption, though the process remains technologically challenging.

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Conclusion 

The Land Gap 2025 Report underscores that relying excessively on land-based carbon removal is unsustainable; real climate action must prioritise deep emissions cuts, forest protection, and socially just, ecologically safe mitigation pathways.

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