Despite the importance of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) in most climate change mitigation scenarios that limit warming to well below 2 °C, the study of CDR is still a nascent field with basic questions to be resolved. Crucially, it is not known how much CDR is currently deployed at a global scale, nor how that compares to mitigation scenario estimates. The authors address this problem by developing an estimate of global current CDR activity. Using national greenhouse gas inventory data, CDR registries, and commercial databases, they estimate that global anthropogenic activity presently generates ∼1985 MtCO2yr−1 of atmospheric removals. Almost all of these—1983 MtCO2yr−1—are removals from land-use, land-use change and forestry. Non-land-management CDR projects such as bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, direct air capture with carbon capture and storage and biochar remove only about 2 MtCO2yr−1. They demonstrate current CDR deployment would need to grow exponentially to keep the world aligned with most ‘well-below 2°C’ scenarios, which see CDR deployment growing between 75% and 100% per year between 2020 and 2030, adding ∼300–2500 MtCO2 in total CDR capacity.