Before we worry about removing atmospheric carbon, the easiest and simplest thing we can do is to emit less of it.
It's cheaper to not emit 1T of CO2, then to pull 1T of CO2 out of the air.
It's cheaper to not emit 1T of CO2, then to pull 1T of CO2 out of the air.
Optimize the critical path. When your patient is bleeding from a severed arm, don't waste time with slapping a bandaid on their little toe.
It's tragic that everyone is going to pay more because humans couldn't coordinate soon enough to just do the smart thing, but that's how it is. The IPCC is discussing negative emissions strategies not because they're cheaper than cutting emissions but because humans are not implementing deep emissions cuts fast enough.
There's a lot of (relatively) low-hanging fruit, like making transport more efficient and eating less meat.
You can't stop entropy - but you slow it down.