A growing debate among climate scientists is emerging about whether the international goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by 2100 is still achievable. Some experts argue that current climate policies are insufficient to meet this target, and recent reports suggest the world may already be on a path to surpass it. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) acknowledged this in a September 2 report, yet it has not abandoned the 1.5 °C goal set by the Paris Agreement. Instead, the report suggests that the focus should shift to "limiting" and "managing the exceedance" of this threshold, followed by efforts to "reverse climate change" using technologies that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. One such group of technologies, known as Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR), includes methods like bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS). This process involves growing plants, using them for energy, and capturing and storing the carbon dioxide emissions produced. However, these methods come with challenges, including the need for vast amounts of arable land, which could threaten food supplies and ecosystems. Some studies suggest that BECCS could require up to 3 billion hectares of land, more than twice the area currently used for agriculture worldwide. Other CDR methods, such as marine carbon capture and direct air capture, also face limitations in terms of cost, energy needs, and scalability. The French Academy of Sciences highlighted in a 2025 report that while these technologies could help achieve net zero emissions, their large-scale use to cool the planet and bring temperatures back below 1.5 °C is speculative and not guaranteed to be safe. Climatologist Philippe Ciais has criticized the inclusion of CDRs in climate scenarios, arguing that they may create unrealistic expectations and downplay the urgency of reducing emissions immediately. The concept of negative emissions, which underpins the use of CDRs, was first promoted by the fossil fuel industry in the 1990s through carbon capture and storage technologies. Historian of science Jean-Baptiste Fressoz notes that the use of terms like "stabilizing concentrations" instead of "emissions" in climate agreements has allowed for the inclusion of CDRs. Meanwhile, climatologist Éric Guilyardi argues that focusing too much on temperature targets can lead to a simplistic view of climate change, favoring technological fixes over broader societal discussions. Within the scientific community, there is no consensus on whether to aim for stabilizing the climate at 1.5 °C or a higher temperature such as 1.8 °C. As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) prepares a new report on climate exceedance scenarios, the growing influence of CDRs is being acknowledged, but the need for more research into their actual effectiveness remains.