Carbon dioxide removal and how to achieve it

Arresting climate change and attaining the goal of greenhouse gas neutrality requires not just a massive reduction in emissions, but also the active removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Experts will be showing how this could be accomplished in the CDR Experience Tour 2026 on 18 and 19 June.

The event is being organized by CDRterra in conjunction with the German Association for Negative Emissions (DVNE) and the NGO remove. In the CDRterra research program, over a hundred scientists from a variety of research institutions are investigating the opportunities, risks, and potential of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) in Germany. The spokesperson for the consortium is geographer Julia Pongratz, Professor of Physical Geography and Land Use Systems at LMU. She will kick off the two-day CDR Experience Tour with an introductory speech at the Bavarian State Parliament in which she will present various CDR methods and place them in their scientific context.

Subsequently, the guests from the worlds of politics, business, media, and civil society will be shown various CDR projects in the Munich and Nuremberg areas. CDRterra researchers will be taking part in the tour. “We want to share the scientific insights from CDRterra in direct engagements with decision-makers from politics, business, and civil society,” explains Julia Pongratz. “Only when we bring together various perspectives and transparently discuss both the potential and risks of different approaches can we forge a responsible path forward to carbon dioxide removal.”

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The stations of the tour include projects taking very different approaches: from the novel method of Direct Air Carbon Capture and Storage (DACCS), which allows the direct sequestration of carbon from the air, to a technology for innovative biogas usage via a biological fuel cell with carbon capture; and from the manufacture of biochar in a pyrolysis plant to the management of natural carbon sinks such as forests and moors.

“We need a diversified portfolio of nature-based and technological approaches to carbon dioxide removal,” says Julia Pongratz, who primarily researches the influence of human land use on global carbon cycles and the climate. “Nature-based methods in particular offer synergies with other sustainability goals, such as biodiversity and soil protection. An active carbon dioxide removal policy is therefore not just a central building block for achieving greenhouse gas neutrality, but can also deliberately harness these synergies for sustainable transformation.”

The CDR Experience Tour 2026 is being funded through the LMU Sustainability Fund, which supports university projects around ecological, economic, and social sustainability. In addition to interdisciplinary research, innovative teaching, and effective infrastructure, this includes the transfer of research findings into politics, the private sector, and civil society.

CDR Experience Tour 2026
On June 18 and 19, 2026, the CDR Experience Tour will take place in Bavaria, organized by the CDRterra research program in collaboration with the German Association for Negative Emissions (DVNE) and the NGO remove. As part of the tour, selected participants from the fields of politics, business, and the media will visit projects in the Munich area that are already implementing CO2 removal.