Meeting 1.5°C or 2°C warming targets will require removing carbon dioxide that is already in the atmosphere — and that we will continue to add until we reach net-zero emissions. Carbon dioxide can be removed directly from the atmosphere or indirectly from water through photosynthesis (biogenic carbon dioxide removal (CDR)), natural reactions in minerals (geochemical CDR), or engineered systems powered by low-carbon energy (synthetic CDR). Direct air capture (DAC) is a prominent mode of synthetic CDR.

The IPCC’s most optimistic 1.5°C scenarios require removal of 10–13 GtCO₂e/year by 2050, which is about the same as current annual emissions from China.¹ This translates into huge growth in CDR market value: from $0.8 billion–$2.1 billion today to $0.3 trillion—$1.2 trillion by 2050.²

Africa could benefit significantly from this market growth: Africa-sourced carbon credits using existing, predominantly nature-based methods have a technical potential of 2.4 GtCO₂e by 2030, which would be worth nearly $50 billion at an average carbon price of $20/ton.³ An estimated additional 400 MtCO₂e/year is possible via synthetic methods such as DAC (which aspire to eventually cost ~$100/ton of CO2 removed, while currently costing $400-or more per ton in today's nascent and supply-constrained CDR market). Tapping about half of East Africa’s ~20 GWe geothermal unutilized potential at today’s typical DAC efficiency could generate about 20% of the global carbon dioxide removal projected for 2035. Exhibit 1 below shows that Africa’s theoretical potential for CDR across these methods is an order of magnitude higher than RMI’s global 2035 projections based on the current speed of technology deployment.⁴

Exhibit 1

Today’s deployments and developing projects in Africa span CDR categories and approaches. The Great Green Wall initiative is restoring degraded lands and sequestering carbon in the Sahel. NetZero and Releaf are piloting biochar production in Cameroon and Nigeria, respectively. Flux, a Kenya-based enhanced rock weathering startup, spreads silicate rock powder on farm lands, to simultaneously improve crop yields and sequester CO₂, according to early field trials.⁵ In 2025, Kenya-born Octavia Carbon commissioned Project Hummingbird, the first commercial DAC plant on the African continent, in partnership with Cella Mineral Storage. Inc. (see Spotlight below). Meanwhile, Cella partnered with Sirona Technologies and chose Kenya as the site for their pilot DAC facility with advanced carbon mineralization for storage, launched in February 2025.⁶

Each CDR approach has its own set of trade-offs, underscoring the importance of developing a variety of pathways to match the diverse resources, timelines, geographies, and desired project specifications of developers, funders, and communities around the world. While an approach like reforestation has the co-benefit of ecosystem restoration, the carbon removal potential is at a greater risk of being reversed in the short or medium term through wildfire or subsequent deforestation. Enhanced rock weathering similarly offers a co-benefit of improving soil health and increasing harvests, but it can be challenging to precisely measure the amount of carbon removed, given that deployment and subsequent removal occurs in the open systems of farmlands or coastlines.

DAC offers the advantages of small physical footprints, precise measurement of capture, and permanence of removal. It also, however, typically requires the most energy and is consequently among the most expensive CDR methods. Desired technical characteristics of a DAC site include cheap, abundant carbon-free electricity (even better if it can be delivered alongside cheap, abundant heat); the right geochemical conditions for permanent CO₂ storage; and an electricity system that is already largely decarbonized — to ensure that new clean energy can be used for DAC without prolonging the use of dirty energy elsewhere.⁷

Kenya has many sites with these characteristics and is fast becoming a global leader. It has an estimated 10 GW of untapped geothermal energy potential alongside solar and wind, the Kenyan Rift Valley’s basaltic rock formations can permanently store captured carbon, and 91% of its energy comes from carbon-free sources.⁸ While most early DAC development has taken place in Kenya to date, it is by no means the only sub-Saharan African country with the right ingredients. The entire East African Rift region, running from Mozambique to Ethiopia, has ample geothermal potential and basaltic rock.

“We chose Kenya for its unique combination of geology and geothermal energy, which provides ideal conditions for DAC partners.”

—Corey Pattison, CEO of Cella ⁹

DAC involves filtering CO₂ from the ambient air, concentrating it, and then storing or using it. DAC thus requires efficient separation of carbon from the air, regeneration of the capture material, storage or transport of the CO₂, and access to suitable energy and long-term carbon storage.

Even in the perfect location, scaling DAC will require further technological, engineering, project development, and business model innovation and iteration. The most cost-competitive DAC technologies in the long run will be those that can most efficiently transform low-carbon energy into high-purity carbon dioxide. RMI’s Applied Innovation Roadmap for CDR lists 10 different technological approaches for DAC that use absorption, adsorption, membranes, or cryogenic phase separation.¹⁰

Exhibit 2 summarizes opportunities in several innovation areas, finding that African countries have competitive advantages across each of them. Below, we dive deeper into three of these areas we believe have the nearest-term potential to scale engineered carbon removal in Africa.

Exhibit 2

Optimizing DAC for Africa’s energy resources

Many of today’s early-stage pilot DAC systems require over 2 MWh/tCO₂, particularly if they use heat to release the concentrated CO₂ and regenerate the carbon-catching ability of the sorbent.¹¹ Energy requirements can be high enough that, for sites that would only have access to coal-fired energy, process emissions could outweigh the carbon removed through DAC.¹² Clean energy is thus an important input for DAC processes, and system improvements that can reduce energy requirements will be one of the highest priorities for DAC innovation over the coming years.

As noted above, the Rift Valley is unique in its abundance of geothermal energy, and it may become one of the first places where today’s DAC technologies are the cleanest and most cost-effective to deploy. Abundant geothermal resources provide the ideal source of low-grade heat, enabling countries in East Africa to lead deployment of temperature-swing processes that may require 1 MWh/tCO₂ or more. The companies, governments, and coalitions supporting this early DAC progress will also be the ones poised to adopt improved technologies as they are developed.¹³

Innovations that improve energy efficiency for DAC systems will be important for scaling up in the Rift Valley and beyond. Improving air contactor design, optimizing capture materials and processes, and utilizing waste heat (e.g., from geothermal sites) or high-grade heat recovery systems are some of the innovations targeting energy reductions for heat-based systems.

At the time of writing, DAC companies using adsorption and low-grade heat regeneration have deployed the largest amount of funding and commercial projects. However, an alternative DAC approach has gained traction over the past few years thanks to its potential for significantly lower energy requirements. Electrochemistry-based DAC systems use electricity to drive chemical reactions for the CO₂ capture and/or release steps. By targeting CO₂ bonds directly, electrochemistry can use much less energy than systems that require heating an entire reactor for the release step.

These approaches help avoid the temperature and pressure swings required for some DAC systems, reducing not only operating costs but also system complexity and capital expense. Greater simplicity suits modular designs that are adaptable to various environments and energy sources, and that are more suitable for standardization and mass production. Electrochemical reactions can also produce valuable by-products like hydrogen, enhancing overall project economics and helping accelerate other solutions such as green fertilizer.

In the geothermal energy–rich Rift Valley, multiple novel DAC systems could thrive—ranging from temperature-swing to emerging electrochemical processes.

Enabling innovation in geological CO₂ storage (drilling, injection, and monitoring)

The gold standard for CDR is the permanent and durable storage of captured CO₂ for hundreds of years, like deep underground storage or its geochemical conversion to solid minerals. Mature "conventional" geological CO₂ storage technologies involve injecting compressed CO₂ more than one kilometer underground (often into depleted O&G reservoirs or saline aquifers) and have been commercialized globally since the 1970s. Emerging mineralization pathways, such as in-situ (injection of CO₂ a few hundred meters deep into reactive alkaline rocks) and ex-situ mineralization (reacting CO₂ with alkaline minerals in enclosed reactors), present advantageous opportunities for deployment across Africa.

Given East Africa’s geological advantages, in situ mineralization holds particular promise. In this method, supercritical CO₂ or CO₂-rich fluid is circulated through the Rift Valley’s porous basaltic rock, where it is converted to solid carbonate minerals with very low risk of leakage or need for long-term monitoring. Cella is the first company to commercialize in-situ mineralization storage in Kenya, partnering with DAC startups Octavia Carbon and Sirona. Once the storage site is operational, it will be the world's third-ever DAC + in-situ storage commercial project.

Carbon storage requires breakthrough innovation in its own right. In situ mineralization relies largely on existing industrial equipment, including drilling rigs, CO₂ pipelines, water pumps, and sensor and tracer technologies. But these technologies and methods need to adapt to new challenges, including managing high subsurface pressures, variations in geology and hydrology, integration with various CO₂ capture systems, and compliance with local regulations. To succeed in Kenya and beyond, Cella is innovating to increase injection pressure, lower water use, improve drilling and monitoring in new rock types, and optimize their process to suit local geochemical features.

Mass customization will likely play a key role in addressing these engineering challenges and reducing costs associated with the storage step. Advanced design and manufacturing technologies such as 3D design software, additive manufacturing, and computer-aided manufacturing can create custom features and components while keeping costs closer to that of mass production.

Speeding project development

While East Africa has many of the ingredients needed for DAC success, addressing project development challenges such as siting, land acquisition, and permitting will be essential to unlocking its potential. They will require dedicated integration among suppliers of carbon-free electricity and heat, landholders, DAC and storage technology providers, and the carbon markets.

A critical area of innovation, therefore, will not be related to technology, but rather to systems integration and project development. This will require players like Great Carbon Valley (GCV), with strong local networks and the ability to offer access to turnkey sites with permits, low-cost energy, and local partners in place. The GCV model has early momentum via partnerships and collaborations with many leading technology companies, including, Cella and Carbfix as CO₂ storage providers, and Ocatvia Carbon, Climeworks, and Sirona Technologies, as DAC developers.¹⁴

Project development support

The fast growing global DAC industry has only a few large scale plants operating as of now primarly across Europe, and the US. These projects offer critical learning opportunities for the industry at large as they contend with weather conditions, pressure-test the manufacturing tolerances on equipment, monitor longer-term material performance and degradation, and figure out how to maintain CO₂ purity in a real-world operating environment. The proof of concept they offer helps build the confidence of investors and carbon credit buyers. DAC simply will not move fast enough without more at-scale, real-world, steel-in-the-ground examples.

“We [Climeworks] are on the one hand, fortunate, on the other hand, also suffering that today we're the only one with a commercial facility in the field. We are actually very much looking forward to some of the other players starting to deploy [commercial facilities], going through the learning curve as we have.”

—Andreas Aepli, CFO of Climeworks ¹⁵

But project development is hard for emergent climate tech companies, especially when it comes to first-of-a-kind (FOAK) projects. These companies require an entirely new set of skills, tools, and relationships when they move from lab or test bed to the construction site. Simultaneously, high capital requirements and the real and perceived risks associated with novel projects rule out many investors, leaving a gap in the financing ecosystem.

Comprehensive support on all aspects of project development can help, including support that is technical (engineering design and planning), commercial (securing both supply chains and offtake), financial (developing and executing on a capital strategy), or regulatory (siting and permitting). Each company and project needs a supportive ecosystem that includes mentors and experts (on DAC, CDR more broadly, and/or carbon markets), EPC firms, capital providers, legal services, and insurance providers. Mission-driven co-project developers — like Great Carbon Valley (described above) or Mark1 (described in Solutions to Spur More Innovation, Deployment, and Scale in the accompanying report) — can help put these pieces together.

Bridging the gap to carbon market maturity

DAC business sell CO₂ removal services, and thus they require functional markets that connect them to buyers. These transactions may be voluntary (i.e., purchasing credits on an optional basis) or mandatory (i.e., purchasing credits required by law).

Demand for voluntary carbon credits could grow 15-fold by 2030 and 100-fold by 2050.¹⁶ This growth in the voluntary carbon markets, coupled with growth in compliance markets and direct government procurement, can support CDR startups. Initiatives like the African Carbon Markets Initiative (ACMI), launched at COP27, can also assist in realizing the potential of carbon markets in Africa.

DAC startups need to pace their development with the growth of carbon credit markets or co-product revenue streams. They need to mature enough to offer carbon credits — even on an ex ante basis — in order to tap into this demand for carbon removal. On the other hand, if their deployments outpace carbon market development, they need to identify other sources of revenue or funding, e.g., by monetizing co-products and co-benefits. Given the early-stage funding gaps described above, African DAC founders will especially need a ramp-up in support to cross precommercial valleys of death. This will include philanthropic support to advance concepts toward venture capital in the absence of significant government R&D dollars.

Navigating regulation

As with most hardware solutions, CDR systems will require permits, ranging from drilling and carbon storage to seawater discharge. For certain geographies and CDR approaches, favorable or challenging regulatory environments can make or break a project. And, as startups look to rapidly test, deploy, and scale, the difference between permitting taking several months and several years can be a game-changer.

Octavia Carbon has been working side-by-side with regulatory officials to assist the development of a supportive regulatory environment, and the Kenyan government is working on a program that would support fast-track permitting and tax incentives. Additional regulatory work is needed to accelerate geothermal power deployment, including transparency in resource concessioning.¹⁷

“Local regulation won’t be a bottleneck, it’ll be an accelerant.”

—Duncan Kariuki, Cofounder & CPO of Octavia Carbon

This article is based on research and convening funded by The Rockefeller Foundation. The findings and conclusions contained herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect positions or policies of The Rockefeller Foundation.