Key Points

• Land-intensive carbon removal methods such as afforestation and bioenergy crops frequently overlap with biodiversity-rich areas.
• Multiple studies estimate that avoiding biodiversity hotspots would remove more than half of the land available for carbon removal in many pathways.
• Careful siting can reduce ecological harm and may create some biodiversity benefits on lower-conflict land.
• Strict biodiversity protections materially constrain how much land can be assigned to carbon removal, shifting attention toward less land-intensive options.
• The evidence repeatedly links carbon removal planning to governance questions about monitoring, enforcement, and land allocation.
• Geographic equity matters because much of the potentially usable land is in the Global South, raising fairness concerns about who bears the land burden.