The Department of Energy launched a $3.5 billion program Thursday to build four large-scale facilities that will suck out carbon dioxide from the air, a step toward President Joe Biden’s climate goals of removing legacy carbon pollution.

The Regional Direct Air Capture Hubs program is funded by the bipartisan infrastructure bill and seeks to capitalize on a new technology to help bring down atmospheric concentrations of CO2 on a major scale.

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The Department of Energy said in a statement that the hubs will utilize a process known as direct air capture to separate CO2 from the air. That CO2 will then be stored deep underground, or converted for use in long-life products such as concrete or pavement, which can prevent its release back into the atmosphere.

Progress on the hubs program in the United States comes amid growing momentum for carbon removal technology programs nationwide. Last month, a new report from the United Nations's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is “essential” if the world hopes to meet the climate targets established in the Paris Agreement.

In that report, researchers said it will be “all but impossible” for the world to achieve net-zero carbon emissions without these types of large-scale carbon removal projects.

“The UN's latest climate report made clear that removing legacy carbon pollution from the air through direct air capture and safely storing it is an essential weapon in our fight against the climate crisis,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in a statement announcing the effort.

“President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is funding new technologies that will not only make our carbon-free future a reality but will help position the U.S. as a net-zero leader while creating good-paying jobs for a transitioning clean energy workforce.”

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By midcentury, the department said, carbon removal technology will need to be deployed at the “gigaton scale.” One gigaton of sequestered CO2 is equivalent to the annual emissions of approximately 250 million U.S. vehicles driven in a single year.