This Research Forum is sponsored by SDSS’s Sustainable Finance Initiative (SFI) and made possible by
support from the SDSS Sustainability Accelerator Program on Greenhouse Gas Removal (GHG-R) and by
members of the SFI Affiliates Program.

Achieving the climate policy goals of the Paris Agreement entails reducing our emissions of greenhouse
gases (GHG) as well as proactively removing existing GHGs from the atmosphere. Estimates suggest that
nature-based climate solutions (NbCS) such as enhanced weathering (EW), biochar (BC) and
reforestation/afforestation (AR)could collectively remove 9.4 Gt CDR/yr (~4 Gt/yr for EW 2 , 1.8 Gt/yr for
BC 3,4 and 3.6 Gt/yr for AR 5 ).

Investments in nature-based removal projects are growing quickly, encouraged by the advent of multiple
scientific and technological innovations in sensors, geo-chemical engineering, synthetic biology, and
more, as well as by increasing proposals to monetize these assets through voluntary, transnational
carbon markets. However, overcoming barriers to the widespread implementation of nature-based
removals requires addressing various sources of scientific uncertainty in the measurement and
monitoring of GHG fluxes at the project level.

There is also a need for scientifically-informed, consensus-based definitions of what constitutes a
tradeable ton of carbon-equivalent assets. In addition, NbCS will benefit from the development of a
functional carbon marketplace, as well as measuring, monitoring, reporting, and verification (MMRV)
protocols that incorporate improved carbon accounting practices and state-of-the-art techniques for

modeling GHG fluxes with uncertainty estimations.