Why is carbon dioxide nonpolar even though its carbon-oxygen bonds are polar?

Carbon dioxide is considered a nonpolar molecule because of its specific molecular geometry, despite containing polar bonds.

In carbon dioxide, the carbon-oxygen bonds are polar because oxygen is more electronegative than carbon, causing the shared electrons to be drawn toward the oxygen atoms. This creates partial negative charges on the oxygen atoms and a partial positive charge on the carbon atom.12

However, the molecule as a whole is nonpolar because of its linear shape. The two carbon-oxygen bond dipoles point in exactly opposite directions. As a result, the dipole moment of one bond cancels out the dipole moment of the other, leading to a net molecular dipole moment of zero. This contrasts with molecules like water, which are angular; in such cases, the bond dipoles do not cancel out, resulting in a polar molecule.12