A survey of 10,852 respondents across six countries found that public support for carbon dioxide removal (CDR) hinges on procedural and distributive fairness, not on the tonnes of CO2 a project promises to sequester.

Livia Fritz, assistant professor at the University of Geneva's Department of Geography and Environment and at the Institute for Environmental Sciences (ISE), led the peer-reviewed study published in Nature Climate Change. Collaborators came from Aarhus University, the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, Bocconi University, CMCC, Boston University, and the University of Sussex.

The team surveyed respondents in Brazil, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Italy, Norway, and the United Kingdom — a mix of Global North and Global South economies chosen to test whether attitudes travel across income levels and resource profiles.

Which CDR pathways did the study cover?

Three families the IPCC and project developers are scaling toward gigatonne volumes:

• Enhanced rock weathering (ERW), which spreads crushed silicate rock on cropland.
• Marine-based carbon removal (mCDR), which alters ocean chemistry or biology to sequester carbon.
• Direct air capture and storage (DACCS), which scrubs CO2 from ambient air and injects it underground.

Survey participants rated the same governance scenarios for each pathway, so preference data stays comparable across regions and capture chemistries.

What governance model wins support?

Projects structured as not-for-profit utilities and operating with benefit-sharing arrangements drew the strongest backing in every country tested. Fritz and her co-authors framed the most attractive option as arrangements inspired by public utilities — not-for-profit models that distribute returns to the host community.

Respondents who reported being consulted by community members or independent scientific experts posted higher approval ratings across all three technologies and all six jurisdictions tested.

Where do private-profit models fall?

Projects structured to keep all financial returns with developers ranked lowest. The pattern held across ERW, mCDR, and DACCS, indicating the trigger is ownership and revenue design rather than capture chemistry.

Fritz and her co-authors concluded that fairness concerns outweighed tonnes in shaping acceptance, finding no amount of CO2 removed compensated for what respondents read as unfair process or profit distribution — a result that lands hardest on privately financed DAC hubs that retain the bulk of revenue for outside investors.

What's the next milestone to watch?

The team plans to publish the full dataset and country-level breakdowns to support regulators drafting CDR governance frameworks. The release arrives as standards bodies and ministries work out how to score the social license of projects alongside lifecycle emissions and permanence metrics.

For circular-economy infrastructure planners, the operational takeaway is direct: facilities that pre-commit to community benefit-sharing and transparent oversight stand a stronger chance of public backing. Plants designed around owner-only profit capture draw the lowest approval. The question for the next pipeline of CDR project proposals is whether developers, financiers, and certifiers redesign revenue splits — or rely on volume metrics alone to win social license.