From our perspective, communicating CDR (Carbon Dioxide Removal) across different social contexts, media, and networks is crucial for its success or failure. The sixth chapter of “The State of Carbon Dioxide Removal, 3rd Edition” report shows how acceptance of CDR depends on climate justice, trust, and local benefits, alongside understanding the fundamental role of communication and proper information transmission for the progress of atmospheric carbon dioxide capture.
The Importance of Perceptions and Communication
Reading this chapter, we observe the analysis of atmospheric carbon dioxide capture across different social contexts and how it is communicated in media and networks. It stems from the idea that although CDR has gained weight in scientific reports and policy debates, it remains a poorly known topic for the majority of the population, and current communication frameworks are often confusing, mixing technologies with very different climate implications. Throughout the chapter, three pillars are combined: social science literature on the acceptance of energy and climate technologies, new empirical evidence on attitudes toward specific CDR methods, and content and sentiment analysis in the press and digital platforms.
CDR Acceptance and Climate Justice
Applying classic social acceptance frameworks to CDR, the chapter shows that attitudes toward these technologies are rarely a flat yes or no. Support and rejection are usually conditional on factors such as direct economic costs and benefits, environmental and productive co-benefits, the quality of institutional and project governance, trust in the actors involved, and broader values regarding climate justice and relationship with nature. Empirical evidence indicates that people tend to view more favorably those methods that bring clear improvements to their immediate surroundings—for example, restoration of peatlands and wetlands, agroforestry systems, soil carbon sequestration practices, or biochar that improves fertility and water retention. Conversely, more skepticism is shown toward options perceived as highly technological or remote, such as direct air capture (DACCS) or certain marine interventions, especially when their local benefits, risks, and governance are not well explained.
The chapter grants a central role to justice. It underlines that historical trajectories of environmental injustice, structural racism, land dispossession, or poorly managed projects deeply condition how new CDR proposals are received. In communities with such experiences, CDR can be perceived as a continuation of extractive practices if presented as an innovation arriving from the outside without real participation or guarantees of fair distribution of benefits and risks. Therefore, the authors insist that CDR planning must integrate from the outset a careful look at existing inequalities, potential differentiated impacts, and mechanisms to prevent the repetition of past injustices, making social sciences indispensable for understanding and addressing these matters.
Communication Processes and Participation
Beyond messages, the chapter proposes guidelines for designing communicative and participatory processes around CDR projects. It recommends developing specific materials for potential adopters—for example, farmers—explaining what applying soil carbon sequestration or biochar practices implies, what technical and administrative requirements they entail, and how results are monitored. It also emphasizes the need for inclusive structured dialogue processes that involve local communities, social organizations, and historically marginalized groups from the initial planning stages. Public communication, it notes, should be backed by stable, fair, and transparent policy signals in the form of removal targets, quality criteria, and safeguards, so that it is not limited to rhetorical campaigns but reflects credible regulatory frameworks.
CDR in the Print Press
A substantive part of the chapter is dedicated to analyzing the presence of CDR in the press using systematic searches and trained classifiers to identify articles and distinguish methods. The results show a trajectory of steady increase in the number of articles since the mid-2000s, peaking at moments like COP26 or the consolidation of “net-zero emissions” language. Since 2021, however, specific coverage of CDR has fallen sharply, with annual declines around 24%, higher than the drop registered in general climate coverage. Qualitative analysis of pieces from major Anglo-Saxon newspapers reveals that most articles recognize the need to continue reducing emissions, and few explicitly present CDR as a direct alternative to mitigation. Nonetheless, many resort to frameworks describing methods as “natural” or “unnatural” and mix references to CDR with other technologies like fossil CCS, offsets, or geoengineering without drawing a clear line between them. This contributes to confusing what is considered durable removal from the atmosphere and can make it easier to legitimize practices with much more limited climate value.
CDR on Social Networks
The chapter extends the analysis to social networks by building on previous work on Twitter/X and incorporating data from Reddit and Bluesky. The digital conversation on CDR appears concentrated on a few methods—afforestation and reforestation, DACCS, BECCS, biochar, and enhanced weathering—while other approaches, such as biomass sinking, ocean fertilization, or direct ocean storage, are barely mentioned. Sentiment analysis reflects a mix of hope and curiosity toward new solutions with skepticism and concern over costs, impacts, and justice, especially in the case of large and technologically complex projects. On Reddit and Bluesky, the discussion tends to be more technical and specialized, with a strong presence of scientists, activists, and industry professionals, offering useful spaces for deepening debates but keeping CDR as a niche topic.
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