Welcome to the Global CO₂ Initiative! If you’re new to carbon capture and utilization, this site will provide a short introduction to the field.

You may already know that all living things on earth are carbon based life forms.

But did you know that most of the products we use in everyday life are also made out of carbon? When a raw material is used to make other products, we call it a “feedstock.” The products below are made with carbon feedstocks.

Eventually, we realized that too much carbon has been released into the atmosphere, partly due to products decaying, but also because of the fossil energy sources we use.

This excess of carbon in the atmosphere and oceans contributes to global warming, which is causing catastrophic problems all over the world. So we need to stop using fossil fuels as soon as possible.

We can and should use renewable sources of energy (e.g. wind or solar) instead of fossil sources of energy. Windmills and solar panels are great at producing energy; they are not great at producing carbon feedstock. In fact, they do not produce any carbon feedstock at all.

So, if we stop using all fossil sources of carbon, how will we get the carbon feedstock that we need to make products?

How will we be able to create all of the products that we need for everyday living?

This is a pressing issue that directly affects climate change and a wide array of industries. That’s where carbon capture comes in. Carbon capture and utilization (CCU) is the process of capturing carbon from various sources and using it to make everyday products.

• CCU reduces atmospheric and oceanic CO₂ to help fight global warming.
• CCU provides non-fossil sources of carbon for use in necessary products, thus reducing reliance on fossil sources. Not only are fossil carbon sources bad for the environment, at some point, we would use them all up.
• CCU provides revenue by enabling us to sell products. Revenue generation is often a great motivator for people to adopt new processes.

A wide array of products are already being made with captured carbon, including everyday products like clothing, hand sanitizer, and soda. One of the most environmentally friendly uses of CCU is incorporating captured carbon into building materials, namely concrete. Other uses include soap, alcohol, and even diamonds!

Along with browsing the resources we have available on our website, there are many other great resources like the National Academies of Science Engineering and Medicine report “Carbon Utilization Infrastructure, Markets, Research and Development,” which was co-authored by the GCI director.

If you want to learn more about CDR in general, consider reading the CDR Primer.