Back to the Basics: The Race to Enhance and Scale Biological Carbon Sinks
Living systems draw down CO₂, providing essential carbon sinks. Biomass preservation includes managing waste to prevent decomposition. Biochar is one example that has positive agricultural benefits, and sequesters carbon. Engineered biological systems, shown on the right, are intervention paths that redirect biomass into a denser layer underground for longer-term storage.
For billions of years, photosynthesis has been pulling carbon from the atmosphere, transforming sunlight and CO₂ into the biomass in our forests, soils, and oceans. The scale is staggering: plants take up hundreds of gigatons of CO₂ each year. The downside? Most of that carbon cycles right back into the atmosphere through decay and respiration, leaving only a small fraction stored long-term. But what if we could increase the portion of CO₂ that nature keeps locked away? Innovators are exploring new ways to convert biomass into ultra-stable forms like biochar, durably lock it away in carbon sinks, or slow the natural processes that cause decomposition — replacing temporary removal with long-term storage. By amplifying nature’s own processes and prolonging their carbon-storing capacity, we can unlock one of the most readily scalable decarbonization pathways our planet has to offer.
The Path We’re On
Nature’s carbon engine is losing ground.
Biological carbon removal is a natural process that has existed for as long as life itself. The key to this process is photosynthesis, which is nature’s way of turning sunlight, water, and CO₂ into organic matter. When plants and algae absorb carbon dioxide, they transform it into leaves, wood, roots, biomass, and soils, creating reservoirs of carbon. This system, along with mineral carbon removal, contributes to the overall balance of carbon in the atmosphere, cycling vast quantities of CO₂ each year. Today, however, that natural balance has become overwhelmed.
Preserving these natural carbon sinks must be our first priority (please see Protecting Nature for more on this topic). Forests, soils, wetlands, and oceans are already doing immense climate work, for free — but once degraded, their carbon-storing capacity can take decades or centuries to recover. No amount of technological innovation can compensate for the loss of intact ecosystems.
But preservation alone is no longer enough.
Even the healthiest ecosystems cycle most of the carbon they absorb back into the atmosphere on relatively short timescales, and climate change itself is accelerating the processes that release that carbon — from faster decomposition to more frequent disturbances like wildfire. As a result, nature’s carbon engine is not just under threat; it’s losing its ability to keep carbon locked away for long enough to counter today’s emissions.
Another challenge: many ecosystems have natural limits to how much carbon they can store. Once these carbon ‘stocks’ are saturated, additional removals slow — highlighting the need to stabilize or extend storage beyond natural cycles.
This is where technology has a critical role to play.
A New Way Forward
Created by nature. Amplified by innovation.
By enhancing biological systems — slowing decomposition, stabilizing biomass, and converting short-lived carbon stocks into durable forms — innovation can help extend the lifespan of nature’s carbon storage. The goal is not to replace natural processes, but to reinforce them: turning rapid, temporary carbon cycling into long-term removal that operates on climate-relevant timescales.
Biological carbon removal spans a spectrum of approaches. At one end are strategies that enhance natural biological systems, helping ecosystems capture and move more carbon into longer-lived sinks. A step further are biomass preservation approaches, which capture carbon through natural growth, but intervene to prevent that carbon from returning to the atmosphere through decay or combustion. At the far end of the spectrum lie engineered biological systems: organisms intentionally designed to capture and store carbon in entirely new ways. The imperatives and moonshot below represent these three broad approaches, each of which carries different levels of risk, permanence, and scalability.
Innovation Imperatives
Expand the capacity of living carbon sinks
Nature already operates vast biological systems — from forests to plankton — that draw down carbon at global scale. By enhancing these systems, we can increase the amount of CO₂ they capture and store over climate-relevant timescales. Approaches may include actively cultivating and optimizing biological systems to capture more carbon and move it into longer-lived sinks, such as purpose-grown ocean algae or phytoplankton that can be cultivated at scale and directed into deep-ocean carbon pathways. These strategies build on nature’s self-renewing carbon cycle rather than replacing it, offering the potential for low-cost, scalable removal that grows with living systems. However, they must be developed with care, given the risks of ecological disruption, governance challenges, and questions of permanence. If pursued responsibly, enhanced biological systems could unlock a new generation of living carbon sinks that expand the planet’s natural capacity to remove CO₂.
Design new methods to increase permanence and prevent biomass decomposition
While plants are experts at capturing atmospheric CO₂, that carbon is quickly released when they decay or burn. We need to engineer new, low-cost methods that prevent decomposition at scale — whether through controlled burial, chemical stabilization, conversion into biochar-like materials, or transformation into durable building inputs — locking carbon into stable forms for centuries or longer. By redirecting forestry and agricultural residues away from combustion and decay, this approach creates a direct, scalable pathway for durable carbon removal using biomass that is already being produced.
Moonshots
Develop engineered organisms that maximize the capacity of living carbon sinks
Nature already deploys self-replicating systems — from forests to plankton — that draw down carbon at scale. By engineering biological systems that can propagate themselves and increase net CO₂ removal, we could create low-cost, scalable removal mechanisms that expand with minimal human input. This could include enhanced ocean algae, root-deepening crops, or fast-growing marine organisms and tree species. The promise of these systems lies in exponential growth potential. However, the associated risks are significant — among them, ecological disruption, governance, and permanence. If these barriers are overcome, engineered systems could form a self-expanding, living carbon sink that strengthens over time.
The most viable solutions will:
Biological carbon is inherently unstable; it burns, decomposes, and turns over quickly. Solutions must guarantee long-lived storage, whether by stabilizing biomass, reducing decay, or protecting carbon stocks from climate-driven disturbances.
For biological carbon removal to reach climate-relevant scale, costs must decline to levels that enable broad participation from major emitters. Systems that deliver carbon removal as a byproduct of other commercial activities — for example, through agriculture practices — can help reduce overall system costs and bring us closer to gigaton scale.
Land is finite, scarce, and deeply contested. Approaches must maximize carbon per acre, work on degraded or low-value land, or avoid new land footprints altogether (e.g., residues, waste biomass, ocean pathways). Successful solutions must respect food production needs, biodiversity constraints, and community and Indigenous land rights.
Because biological carbon fluctuates, measurement must be accurate, affordable, and scalable. Winning approaches will pair low-cost monitoring, report, and verification (MRV) with transparent accounting that captures how much carbon is stored, for how long, and with what risk.
The sector cannot scale without confidence in credit quality. Innovators must ensure verifiable, additional, high-integrity carbon, avoiding over-crediting and proving that storage persists over time. Trust from buyers, regulators, and communities is foundational.
