Temporary carbon dioxide removal to offset short-lived climate forcers

The growing interest in temporary carbon dioxide removal (CDR) reflects concerns over the feasibility and cost-effectiveness of permanent solutions. However, efforts to integrate temporary CDR into climate policies have relied on flawed equivalency assumptions between temporary and permanent CDR that contradict physical climate science: temporary CDR cannot fully offset CO₂ emissions as permanent CDR can. Instead, we demonstrate that temporary CDR provides an effective mechanism for compensating non-CO ₂ climate forcers. For instance, offsetting 1 kg CH ₄ requires 41.3 kg CO ₂ with 500-year temporary storage (such as biochar) or 716 kg CO ₂ with 20-year storage (such as bioplastics). This approach is particularly effective for short-lived species because their compensation ratios remain stable across different assessment timeframes, providing robust metrics for climate policy applications. We identify a critical lifetime threshold that separates short-lived and long-lived species for temporary CDR applications, with implementation requiring differentiated reporting of these categories in climate policies. This framework creates a valuable opportunity for sectors like agriculture, where non-CO ₂ emissions dominate and direct emission reductions remain extremely challenging.