Navraj Singh Ghaleigh co-authors two reports on Greenhouse Gas Removal
Fri 5 December 2025
As part of the CO2RE project, Navraj Singh Ghaleigh, Senior Lecturer in Climate Law, has co-authored two reports, the 2025 Update on Greenhouse Gas Removal Costs and Scaling Challenges and The UKRI Strategic Priorities Fund Green House Gas Removal Demonstrators Programme. Edinburgh Law School Research Fellow, Marsaili Van Looy is also a co-author of the latter report.
Navraj Singh Ghaleigh leads the projects work package “Law, Governance and Ethics”. The project delivers cross-cutting research to address multidisciplinary challenges of green house gas removal, providing critical oversight and delivering solutions-led research to address societal levers for change.
2025 Update on Greenhouse Gas Removal Costs and Scaling Challenges
Written with colleagues from Oxford, UCL and Imperial College, this report explores the question of what the near- and medium-term costs of greenhouse gas removals (GGRs) are.
Key insights from the report include:
- Overall cost trends: GGR cost estimates have increased, as compared to ERM's 2021 analysis, largely reflecting improved data availability and better clarity on previously uncertain factors. Transport and storage of captured CO₂, and MRV (monitoring, reporting & verification) remain major cost drivers across most GGR methods.
- DACCS & biochar costs: Greater visibility into subcategories of these methods reveals significant price variations—critical for informed decision-making.
- System boundaries matter: Standardization is essential for meaningful cross-comparison of GGR approaches.
- Beyond the numbers: Business models, regulatory barriers, and deep uncertainty must be factored into GGR strategies
The UKRI Strategic Priorities Fund Green House Gas Removal (GDR-D) Demonstrators Programme
The report brings together findings conducted by the CO2RE team over the four and a half years.
Since 2021, the GGR-D programme has piloted five different land-based GGR methods: woodland creation and management, enhanced peatland restoration, enhanced rock weathering, biochar, and perennial biomass crops for BECCS (bioenergy with carbon capture and storage).
The programme has delivered a wide range of insights on the policy and legal environments that are needed to support GGR and the business models that can help GGR scale up in the UK, as well as what it means for GGR innovation to be socially responsible. GGR-D researchers have also developed an Evaluation Framework to assess and compare GGR projects on a credible, coherent and consistent basis. Their work has reinforced the need for robust monitoring, reporting and verification procedures so that we can be confident about the effectiveness of GGR methods.
Here are some of the key findings from the report:
- Both top-down and bottom-up approaches are needed to help GGR scale sustainably in the UK. A coherent national strategy and clear national policy and regulatory frameworks are urgently required. These should be paired with place-based projects that are part of local climate action and delivered with and for communities.
- Public-private partnerships could be a tool to help reduce the risk of investment in novel GGR technologies and enable them to scale.
- Rewetting of peatlands reduces greenhouse gas emissions. Rewetting combined with the application of biochar has the potential to deliver substantial net greenhouse gas removal.
- The current application limit set by the Environment Agency for arable land is 1 tonne/ha/year. Our research shows this can be safely increased to 10 tonnes/ha/year, with no evidence of heavy metals accumulation in soils.
- Crushed basalt rock, which is used in enhanced rock weathering, can be applied at a rate of 40 tonnes/ha/year with no heavy metals accumulation in soils.
- Perennial biomass crops for BECCS can deliver effective greenhouse gas removal in different locations in the UK and can do so much faster than tree-planting. However, planting in high-carbon soils should be avoided because the loss of carbon during the transition will take many years to reverse.
- The maintenance and harvesting of new woodlands must be undertaken sustainably. If it is not, the soil releases more carbon than is removed by tree growth, even over a period of 70+ years.