Land-Use Implications of Carbon Dioxide Removal: An Emerging Legal Issue?

Science has expressed concerns that carbon dioxide removal (CDR) as a means to fight climate change could potentially increase competition for land and contribute to soil degradation. This paper aims to map out the potential land-use and soil implications of CDR to identify possible lines of political and legal conflicts. To this end, we will briefly introduce the most promising removal approaches, highlight existing preliminary estimates about their removal potential, give some basic assumptions about their effects on competition over land and the environment, and discuss the demand for political and legal action (Sect. 5).