Introduction

Current global fossil fuel reduction targets used by our governments (and most environmental groups) incorporate calculations for future reductions in atmospheric carbon based on an untested and unproven new carbon removal technology. This carbon removal technology won't exist at an adequate scale until sometime after 2050, if at all. If this sounds like a dangerous and irrational way to calculate our current life-critical global fossil fuel reduction targets, you are not alone.

Before we tell you why atmospheric carbon capture technology (aka NETs, negative emission technologies) designed to suck carbon particles out of our atmosphere will not save us in time from unending global warming catastrophes and global warming extinction, it would be helpful to tell you a short story to provide a relevant context for what the following materials will mean to your life.

Here is that short story:

Imagine you are addicted to some dangerous drug that will continue to ruin your life and is almost sure to cause your death within the next ten years. The only way that will not happen is if you quit entirely or, at the minimum, radically cut back on your drug usage. 

You go to the world's leading doctor and authority on drug addiction for help. The doctor says to you, "I know that will be difficult for you to cut down or completely stop using the drug you are using now, but don't worry. You do not have to reduce your drug usage or quit at this time. 

I have heard from colleagues that a promising new drug technology is being developed, which is expected to take approximately 30 years or so. This new drug technology should be able to stop you from taking the drug you are addicted to now, and it will remove most of the damage that this drug has caused to your body." 

It's hard not to imagine that you would not feel betrayed by the advice that this expert is giving you. This betrayal is particularly true because your quality of life would suffer severely from your continued drug use, and you would likely die within the projected ten-year period. As hard as it is to believe, that is what's happening with what our global warming authorities [the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)] are telling us in the most elusive of ways. There are also other parallels to this story regarding the effects of not radically reducing fossil fuel use to meet the 2025 reduction targets, as outlined below.

 

 

The "carbon capture will save us from the escalating global warming extinction emergency in time," big lie

With the above story in mind, here are the details on why carbon capture technology will not save us in time from our almost 200-year-old serious addiction to fossil fuel.

 

 

The world's leading global warming authority (the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC]) took the cowardly and easy way out. Instead of being honest with the public and telling us that we needed to make immediate, radical, and costly global reductions in fossil fuel use and make sacrifices for our children and future generations, they created false estimates of fossil fuel reductions. (Those targets and deadlines are that we need to make a 40% reduction in total global fossil fuel use by 2030 and then reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.)

You will hear a lot about the Green New Deal that the US Democratic Party is trying to include in its 2020 political platform. The Green New Deal (along with all of the NGOs) currently using the IPCC's targets and deadlines suffer the same fatal flaw now being used by the world's leading authority to keep us from facing the following painful and difficult reality:

(Special 9.22.25 update. Not even the 2025 global fossil fuel reductions will save us from going beyond 2°C and the nightmare that brings. What is needed now in global fossil fuel reductions is described at the top of this page and as you will discover for many reasons in the article below, there is no way that any carbon capture technology no matter how much it advances is going to be able to save humanity from the climate change emergency and subsequent collapse.)

Here's how this intentionally deceptive global reduction of fossil fuels works. Like many things, the devil is in the details. As the essential part of their calculations to prevent the world from reaching a 2°C increase in average global temperature before 2100, the IPCC (and everyone else using their calculations) have relied upon the projected effects of a currently unproven carbon removal technology (or as we call them, magical carbon sucking unicorns,) for their "allowable" reductions for ongoing atmospheric fossil fuel carbon pollution.

"Inventing" this post-2050 atmospheric carbon removal "miracle cure and trick," which will somehow remove astronomically massive amounts of carbon from our atmosphere after 2050 was the only way to literally force their current carbon reduction calculations and targets to work to keep global warming at or below their own acknowledged "very dangerous 2° Celsius level." This "cooking of the accounting books" also allowed them not to declare a global warming emergency.

It also allowed the IPCC not to require us to make the painful and immediate 2025 fossil fuel reductions we needed to make! (See in part, Jason Hickel. "The Paris climate deal won't save us – our future depends on degrowth." The Guardian. July 3, 2017. Worse yet, not only will these magical carbon sucking unicorns be unable to keep the average global temperature increase below 2° C, they also are completely unable to meet the real reductions needed to keep humanity alive and safe long before 2100. (For the record, the way things are going now, we would have to be extremely lucky to remain below 4 or 5° C by as soon as 2060 or 2070.)

These "miracle cures" and "cooked books" were false calculations based on some new technology that would be invented sometime after 2050. They were easy to pass, politically expedient, allowed fossil fuel-exporting nations to avoid economic collapse, and provided a 30-year windfall to fossil fuel-related industries.

These flawed calculations allowed the world's leading global warming authority to mislead everyone into believing the most dangerous falsehood possible about our future. That is:

We are currently safe, and we are making the necessary progress in reducing fossil fuel emissions to prevent the extinction of humanity long before 2100.

We do not know for sure, but at Job One, we believe that brilliant fossil fuel industry lobbyists are the true originators of the idea of skewing and "cooking" the fossil fuel reduction calculations in their favor. It was sneaky, but brilliant to get the IPCC to rely upon nonexistent NETs (magical carbon sucking unicorns,) as opposed to doing what was needed to be done to:

• • effectively reduce fossil fuel use so that we meet our 2°C targets and, 
  • prevent crossing the carbon 600 ppm mass extinction tipping point.

The graph below illustrates the current state of global warming, which is causing carbon levels to rise in the atmosphere.

 

 

The obvious advantage to the fossil fuel industry is that if everyone believes that we only have to reduce our fossil fuel use gradually and a fraction of what we actually have to reduce it as laid out in the honest 2025 global fossil fuel reduction targets, then everyone will go on blissfully and incorrectly using lots and lots of fossil fuel. Again, this allows the fossil fuel industry to reap decades of higher profits, extracting much more fossil fuel from the ground at the expense of your health and well-being.

Additionally, these “miracle cure” NET calculations were fully relied upon for creating our current official governmental fossil fuel reduction targets in spite of the fact that these new carbon sucking technologies:

1. 1. Do not currently exist in any way that could truly be called effective (More will be said about this in point 2 just below.)
   2. Are all but impossible to scale up adequately in time for removing the needed massive amounts of atmospheric carbon, which are conservatively currently estimated at about 100 gigatons just to keep us below a 2-degree Celsius temperature rise. (1 Gigatonne or metric gigaton (unit of mass) is equal to 1,000,000,000 metric tons. 100 gigatons would equal 100 billion metric tons or 100,000,000,000 metric tons.) 

      As of 2018, the three experimental carbon capture plants currently operating are capable of pulling 500,000 metric tons of carbon out of the atmosphere per year, which is far short of the 100,000,000,000 metric tons needed to be removed, according to their flawed calculations. Unfortunately, the amount of additional fossil fuel energy required to achieve this carbon removal creates enormous amounts of additional carbon that enter the atmosphere, rendering the net benefit grossly inadequate. For some of these plants, the average cost per metric ton to remove carbon is currently around $ 600 per metric ton. Where are we ever going to find the 60,000,000,000,000 trillion dollars to fund this grossly inadequate solution? 

      To remove the necessary 100 gigatons of carbon from the atmosphere to keep the average global temperature below 2 degrees and, just to keep up with what we are adding in new carbon every year, but not what we need to do to get back down to safe levels, we would have to create about 200,000 more carbon capture plants similar to the ones currently operating unsuccessfully.
   3. Have so many catastrophic projected side effects that would make their desperate use to save us at the last minute around 2050 far worse than the original problem they were intended to solve! (This page has more about the issue of the many potential catastrophic side effects.)
   4. Do not even allow in their "cooked books calculations" for the massive additional amounts of carbon entering the atmosphere as temperatures rise well before 2050 and we cross key carbon global warming tipping points (such as when the tundra and permafrost begin releasing exponentially more carbon into the atmosphere or when the oceans, trees, and soils stop absorbing carbon and begin releasing carbon in massive quantities.)
   5. Do not even allow in their "cooked books calculations" for the massive additional amounts of methane entering the atmosphere as temperatures rise well before 2050 and we cross key methane global warming tipping points (such as when the tundra and permafrost begin releasing exponentially more methane into the atmosphere or when methane begins being released exponentially from our coastal ocean shelves.) (Methane is 86 times more powerful than carbon in increasing average global temperature and magical carbon sucking unicorns have no known ability to remove these additional massive amounts of methane from the atmosphere.)

As you can see, magical carbon-sucking unicorns are not only a dangerous non-solution, they are also grossly inadequate to solve a problem that needs to be solved long before 2050, so that humanity does not go extinct near or just after 2050. Magical carbon-sucking unicorns are not just "too little too late," they are, in essence, a form of "rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic when we should be steering away from the iceberg," and focusing on getting the honest 2025 global fossil fuel reduction targets achieved.

The near-complete reliance upon these non-existent new technologies by the world's global warming authorities to miraculously save us at the last moment is both irresponsible and irrational beyond belief! It is a mass public delusion at the level of the Emperor's New Clothes parable.

 

 

These projections and reality-unproven calculations are especially unconscionable because the very future survival of humanity is held in the balance by the validity of these calculations, as these calculations are determining the fossil fuel reductions your governments are asking (or demanding) you to make both now and in the future.

Worse yet, these groupthink illusionary and delusionary calculations have given the public a false sense of safety.

They have stolen the necessary accurate sense of appropriate urgency about the real dangers that are here today and over the next several decades, not sometime far off in the second half of the 21st century. Without the correct sense of urgency, the public has been prevented from both understanding and making the critical and radical fossil fuel cuts that should have been made and demanded decades ago to prevent the current global warming extinction emergency.

Because of the above and other factors such as additional miscalculations by the world’s leading global warming authorities underestimating by about 20-40% how fast and severe the consequences of global warming will be as well as the failure to include any of the 11 most dangerous global warming tipping points in their global warming consequence prediction timetables, global warming has now become out of meaningful control for at least the next 30-50 years.

 

 

Here are a few additional questions for future investigation regarding the global warming "carbon sucking unicorns" calculation and analysis anomaly:

1. Is this nonexisting equipment calculation for magical carbon-sucking unicorns that the world has bought into the most clever and evil way the fossil fuel lobbyists induced lazy politicians and timid climate experts to avoid and put off demanding the critical global fossil fuel cuts we should've begun decades ago?

We strongly believe that the tremendous media hype and extensive government promotion of the carbon capture false hope is just another effective action of the global fossil fuel cartels' misinformation and disinformation programs. Please visit the following page, which explains the fossil fuel cartel's disinformation strategy over 60 years, detailing their tactics and misinformation. It will shock you to the core, and we believe you will come to the same conclusion we did about who is behind the "too little too late" carbon capture will save us delusion.

2. Was it an ingenious and near-invisible way to delude us all into thinking that we don't have to cut fossil fuel use by anything but gradual and painless steps in the present, when the exact opposite is true? 

3. Was this an absolutely brilliant way for the fossil fuel industry to trick and co-opt the efforts of environmental organizations and honest global warming fossil fuel reduction calculations, and continue to make record profits when in fact, the fossil fuel industry should be moving towards far, far lower production and/or closing?

4. Have the big environmental groups bought into this delusion and false calculation because they also consciously or unconsciously did not believe that they could ever "sell" the real radical and painful cuts to fossil fuel use that are now necessary to their members?

5. How can we believe that we can remove over 200 years of atmospheric carbon pollution that we have created from fossil fuel burning within as little as 2 to 3 decades in time to save us when an energy-efficient proven version of this technology that is also scalable is not even projected to exist until after 2050? 70 to 90% of us will not be around to see how this fantasy works out.

When you examine the actual fossil fuel usage cuts that humanity needs to make to survive (as shown below), you can't help but wonder if the fossil fuel industry lobbyists are far more powerful and astute than we have previously recognized.

Special AI update of 9.22.25

We have been testing and upgrading almost all of the pages on our website in the third quarter of 2025. We have been using AI to gather the most recent research and then test and evaluate certain of our projections or claims.

Here is what we asked AI about any possibility of carbon capture technology saving humanity, using Hansen's most current research, and the fact that current global fossil fuel use is rising each year by about 3 to 5%.

Our question to AI: At the level of current science and proven results for annual CO2 removal amounts and future carbon capture technology improvements, is it realistically possible for existing or achievable future CO2 removal technology to remove the Hansen required 10 gigatons of CO2 per year starting immediately until 2040, and then 20 gigatons per year by 2050?

AI's answer: 

Short answer: No. With today’s science and built, proven tech, removing 10 GtCO₂/yr “starting immediately” (and then 20 GtCO₂/yr by 2050) isn’t realistic.

Why not—by the numbers

• • What’s happening today: Global CDR is about ~2.0–2.1 GtCO₂/yr, and ~99.9% of that is “conventional” land-based (forest/soils). “Novel/engineered” CDR (DAC, BECCS, enhanced weathering, biochar, etc.) is only ~1–2 MtCO₂/yr—six orders of magnitude below 10 Gt. The State of Carbon Dioxide Removal+2iiasa.ac.at+2

  • Direct air capture (DAC): Just ~0.01 MtCO₂/yr in operation (dozens of tiny plants). Climeworks’ new Mammoth plant is 36,000 t/yr; the company’s own public goal is ~1 Mt/yr by 2030 and ~1 Gt/yr by 2050—far short of 10–20 Gt. IEA+2Reuters+2

  • BECCS: Only ~2 MtCO₂/yr is currently captured from biogenic sources, with <1 Mt stored; the largest projects are still pilots. IEA

  • Geologic storage capacity & build-out speed: Even optimistic new modeling suggests a theoretical max injection rate of ~16 GtCO₂/yr by 2050, contingent on massive, uncertain regional deployment (e.g., the U.S. providing ~60% of the total)—which underscores how difficult even the upper bound is by mid-century, let alone “starting immediately.” Nature

  • Energy, land, cost constraints: DAC at today’s costs (hundreds of $/t) and energy needs would demand electricity on the scale of multiple large nations to reach multi-gigaton removal; afforestation/land CDR faces saturation, permanence, fire/drought risks, and competing land uses. AR6 also flags feasibility and sustainability constraints that limit how fast CDR can scale. Reuters+1

What credible roadmaps say

Independent syntheses (NOAA summary of the State of CDR 2024) conclude that to meet Paris goals the world would need ~7–9 GtCO₂/yr of total CDR by 2050—not now—and that requires huge policy and market shifts plus rapid technology maturation. Today we’re at ~2 Gt (mostly conventional) and ~0.001–0.002 Gt engineered. Climate.gov+1

Bottom line

• • 10 GtCO₂/yr immediately: Not physically or industrially achievable given present capacity (shortfall of ~10,000× for engineered CDR).

  • 20 GtCO₂/yr by 2050: Extremely unlikely without unprecedented breakthroughs and system build-out (capture, transport, storage) well beyond any current commitments; even optimistic geologic storage ramp studies top out below that figure.

 

Just so you see how impossible and expensive the carbon capture can save the world task would be if it was even possible we asked AI to quantify:

• • the electricity, capital cost, and pipeline/storage build you’d need to go from today to 10 and 20 Gt under a few tech mixes (e.g., DAC+BECCS+biochar), and

  • compare those to global energy supply and steel/cement production to show the industrial lift involved.

Here is AI's answer:

Here’s a quantified “back-of-the-envelope” for the industrial lift to run carbon removal at 10 GtCO₂/yr and 20 GtCO₂/yr, focusing on DAC-only for clear upper/lower bounds (you can swap in a mix later). I’ve put the numbers in a table and a quick chart for you, plus a CSV.

Headline results (DAC-only, today’s tech ranges)

• • Electricity needed

    • 10 Gt/yr: ~9,300–20,000 TWh/yr, i.e. 32–68% of all 2023 global electricity (≈29,471 TWh). Ember Energy+2PMC+2

    • 20 Gt/yr: ~18,600–40,000 TWh/yr, i.e. 63–136% of 2023 global electricity. Ember Energy+2PMC+2

  • Capital to build DAC plants (nameplate capacity)

    • Using $700–$1,140 per tCO₂/year installed (near-term FOAK/early-NOAK), you’d need $7–$11.4T for 10 Gt/yr, $14–$22.8T for 20 Gt/yr. (Benchmarks from ETSAP/Kevin Keith’s 1 Mt plant spec; newer analyses still place capital high, with gradual learning.)

  • Pipelines & storage (for permanent geologic storage)

    • Assume 100 Mt/yr trunklines and a 500 km average haul: about 100 trunks / 50,000 km of pipe for 10 Gt, and 200 trunks / 100,000 km for 20 Gt. Estimated transport OPEX ≈ $35B/yr (10 Gt) and $70B/yr (20 Gt) at $0.007/tonne-km. roads2removal.org

    • Injection wells (typical 1.0–1.75 MtCO₂/yr/well):
      • 10 Gt → ~10,000–5,700 wells; 20 Gt → ~20,000–11,400 wells. davidkeith.earth+1

  • Steel demand for those pipelines (order-of-magnitude)

    • Using a representative 16-inch OD, 12.7 mm wall pipe (~124 t steel per km), you’d need ~6.2 Mt steel for 50,000 km and ~12.4 Mt for 100,000 km—about 0.33% and 0.66% of 2024 world steel (~1,886 Mt). For context, the U.S. already has ~800,000 km of hydrocarbon pipelines; existing CO₂ pipelines are only ~6,500 km globally. worldsteel.org+2Global CCS Institute+2

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What I assumed (so you can tweak)

• • Electricity intensity (DAC): lower bound ~0.93 MWh/t (≈0.4 MWh electricity + 1.6 MWh low-temp heatsupplied via heat pump with COP~3), upper bound 2.0 MWh/t (WRI “at scale” example). These bracket today’s credible ranges. PMC+1

  • Global electricity baseline: 29,471 TWh in 2023 (Ember). Ember Energy

  • DAC capital intensity: $700–$1,140 per tCO₂/year capacity (ETSAP slide summarizing APS/Keith; recent TEAs still show high capital dominance, with learning possibly lowering toward 2050).

  • Transport & storage: 100 Mt/yr trunkline capacity; $0.007 per tonne-km transport cost; 1.0–1.75 Mt/yr/wellinjection rates. roads2removal.org+2ccusevent.org+2

  • Steel comparison: World steel 2024: 1,886 Mt; pipeline steel mass from a simple geometry calc. Cement is harder to parameterize without a specific plant design, so I’ve left it qualitative below. worldsteel.org

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How this stacks up against today’s global system

• • Power system: at 10 Gt/yr, DAC would use ~1/3 to 2/3 of current global electricity; at 20 Gt/yr, ~2/3 to >100%—before adding compression, pumps, monitoring, and storage site power. This is why most roadmaps cap total CDR around 7–9 Gt/yr by 2050, and only a portion of that via engineered removals. Ember Energy+1

  • Heavy industry: pipeline steel for the trunk network is non-trivial but not dominant (sub-1% of annual steel). However, DAC units, wells, and storage facilities would add several more Mt of steel plus cement for pads and well casings (cement production ≈4.1 Gt/yr globally), pushing up against multiple supply-chain bottlenecks and permitting constraints. IEA

  • Pipelines reality check: the U.S. hydrocarbon system’s ~800,000 km shows that building 50–100k km is physically possible over decades—but CO₂ pipelines are under distinct safety/permitting scrutiny, and several Midwest CO₂ projects have already hit regulatory roadblocks. Global CCS Institute+2AP News+2

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Costs if you look at today’s “delivered removal” prices

At today’s net removal prices for DAC (many analyses: $400–$700/t, with some higher), annual spend would be roughly $4–$7 trillion/yr for 10 Gt and $8–$14 trillion/yr for 20 Gt, not counting transport & storage. (DOE’s Carbon Negative Shot targets <$100/t by 2030–2032, but that’s an aspirational multi-pathway goal.)

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What’s in the file & figure I shared

• • A table comparing 10 vs 20 Gt/yr across: electricity, share of global electricity, DAC CAPEX, pipeline trunks & km, transport OPEX, injection wells, and pipeline steel.

  • A simple bar chart showing electricity demand vs global supply (so you can see the scale at a glance).

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Sources / evidence

• • Global CDR today & mid-century needs: State of CDR 2024; NOAA explainer. The State of Carbon Dioxide Removal+1

  • DAC energy intensity: Ozkan 2021 (≈0.4 MWh elec + 1.6 MWh heat per tCO₂); WRI 2025 (example 2,000 kWh/t). PMC+1

  • Global electricity 2023: Ember (≈29,471 TWh). Ember Energy

  • DAC costs / capital intensity: ETSAP (Keith-based spec: $1,140 per tCO₂/yr; 5–8 GJ heat, 0–1.78 GJ elec); Pujol 2025/Young 2023 on capital-dominated costs and learning ranges; IEAGHG/Belfer on FOAK/NOAK costs.

  • Pipelines: Roads-to-Removal $0.007/tonne-km & 100 Mt/yr trunklines; existing CO₂ pipelines ~6,500 km(IEAGHG 2013); U.S. hydrocarbon pipeline length (Global CCS Institute). roads2removal.org+2publications.ieaghg.org+2

  • Injection rates per well: literature examples around ~1–1.75 Mt/yr/well. davidkeith.earth+1

  • Steel & cement baselines: World steel 2024 global steel 1,886 Mt; global cement production ~4.1 Gt (IEA). worldsteel.org+1

 

Here are the actual fossil fuel reductions we should be making by 2025:

To slow and prevent the process of crossing the 600 ppm carbon extinction level tipping point, the following actions are needed to occur. The absolute minimum amount we need to reduce fossil fuel use to prevent ourselves from being very likely to go extinct is as follows:

a. All developed nations must reduce their fossil fuel use by 75% by 2025 and then continue to reduce fossil fuel use to zero by 2035. This means that all individuals and businesses within the developing nations must meet these reduction goals. (The 75% amount by 2025 is no longer valid. (Please click here and read the top of the page which explains new and disheartening research.)

b. All developing nations must maintain their fossil fuel use levels as they were at the beginning of 2019 and not allow them to increase further.

(To see all the details of these critical 2025 fossil fuel reduction targets and deadlines, click here.)

This shockingly large and radical reduction in fossil fuel use is now necessary because our past and current gradual and painless reductions are far from what is needed to reach our net-zero carbon goal. To grasp how difficult these cuts will be, imagine that if you live in the developed world in the next 6 years, you will have to cut all of your home, auto, and business uses of fossil fuels by 75% then cut down to no fossil fuel use within 10 years after this.

To help you grasp how difficult these massive global fossil fuel cuts will be, imagine that in the next six years you personally will have to cut all of your home, auto, and business uses of fossil fuels by 75%, then cut them down to zero over the next 10 years. Those are the real numbers we are facing, and the real cuts we need to make to prevent the likelihood of extinction.

What this all means is that magical carbon sucking unicorns (Carbon Capture Technology, NET's) will not save us in time and that, any reliance on them being discovered, scalable or usable without horrendous side effects miraculously some time after 2050 is not only foolish planning (when the very survival of humanity is at stake,) but it is also extremely harmful in that it makes us think the grossly inadequate gradual reductions we are making now will save us from horrendous, soon-arriving consequences when, in fact, the exact opposite is true.

What this ultimately means is that we must face and correctly manage the real cause of escalating global warming, which can only be addressed at this ridiculously late stage of the game by radically reducing fossil fuel use.

To access critical information on the challenges of managing the escalating global warming extinction emergency effectively, click here.

 

For more debunking science on the magical carbon sucking unicorns the fossil fuel industry wants you to believe in so you don't radically reduce your fossil fuel use also see:

Abby Rabinowitz and Amanda Simson. “The Dirty Secret of the World’s Plan to Avert Climate Disaster.” Wired. December 10, 2017.

Climate scientist Kevin Anderson explains the non-viability of these carbon capture assumptions by the Paris Conference Agreement. In a more recent Climate Change Leadership Lecture, Anderson further elaborates on Paris’s shortfall, saying we should focus on urgent and deep fossil fuel use reductions now!

Too Many Companies Are Banking on Carbon Capture to Reach Net Zero

The new Climageddon book was published by Job One for Humanity. It describes all of the major dangerous miscalculations, groupthink illusions, or delusions currently held by the world's leading global warming authorities as well as the 11 major global warming tipping points.

Our blog article is called: Don't worry about global warming ever again because magical carbon-sucking unicorns will turn all of our atmospheric carbon into Skittles and save us just-in-time...

Bio-energy with carbon capture and storage, Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.

The Carbon Capture Conundrum, Public Need Vs. Private Gain