Carbon Removals Pavilion – COP31 (Antalya)

Contract: part-time (4 months) → full-time (6 months)
Location: Remote (Turkey), with travel to Antalya before and during COP
Start: March 2026 (or as soon as possible)
Application deadline: Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis

We’re hiring a Project Manager to lead the end-to-end delivery of the Carbon Removals Pavilion at COP31. This role owns the integrated delivery plan across governance, sponsorship, programme, design/build, logistics, hybrid delivery, communications, partnerships, and on-site operations.

This is a hands-on delivery role for someone comfortable coordinating senior stakeholders while managing real-world execution in a fast-moving COP environment.

Key responsibilities

• Own the master delivery plan, budget, and decision cadence across all pavilion workstreams.
• Set up and run project governance, steering groups, and delivery rhythms as COP approaches.
• Support sponsorship delivery, ensuring sponsor benefits are integrated into the programme, design, and on-site experience.
• Oversee programme delivery (on-site and virtual), including timelines, speaker management, and production readiness.
• Oversee the planning and delivery of the CDR31 (Carbon Removals 31) social event, including venue sourcing.
• Coordinate pavilion design, build, AV/streaming, logistics, staffing, and day-to-day COP operations.
• Lead installation, go-live, and contingency planning ahead of and during COP.
• Ensure strong close-out: financial reconciliation, impact reporting, and handover documentation.
  
  Ideal background
  
• Experience delivering complex, multi-stakeholder projects or international events.
• Strong project management, coordination, and operational execution skills.
• Knowledge of the climate industry and broader stakeholder ecosystem is essential; familiarity with the carbon removals community is a plus.
• Comfortable with climate jargon.
• Comfortable working across policy, finance, communications, and on-site logistics.
• Calm under pressure, highly organised, and delivery-focused.
• Language skills: native Turkish speaker; strong working level of English.

Please send:

• Your CV
• Your ideal remuneration
• A short written response (max 300–500 words) describing what success looks like for you in this role, and one example of delivering a complex event or multi-stakeholder project (including your role and what you delivered).

Send applications to [email protected].

What to expect

Shortlisted candidates will be invited to an interview with members of the CDR31 Steering Group.

The post CDR31 Project Manager appeared first on CDR30.

Why Now: A Critical Moment After 1.5°C Overshoot

The launch of the CDR Mutirão coincides with another global milestone of grave significance: the world’s remaining room for 1.5 °C has tightened to virtually zero The latest UNEP Emissions Gap Assessment makes clear that a temporary overshoot of the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C long-term warming limit is now considered virtually inevitable, likely starting within the next decade. CDR is indispensable for addressing overshoot, and therefore achieving Paris-aligned pathways, both to counterbalance residual emissions and to enable long-term net-negative trajectories. Yet most global benchmarks remain fixed on 2050 or 2100 horizons. These distant timelines do not produce the near-term decisions, investments, and learning required today.

Without rapid advancements in the next five years, CDR will remain underdeveloped, high-cost, and lacking the enabling conditions to scale in line with science-based pathways. The Mutirão directly addresses this gap by anchoring attention on the urgency of 2030 and the need for cross-sector collaboration to unlock learning curves, investment readiness, and market alignment.

What the CDR Mutirão Is: A Collective Effort for Implementation

Rooted in the Brazilian concept of mutirão—continuous mobilization through collective effort—the CDR Mutirão is designed as a structured architecture for shared learning and coordinated acceleration. It consists of three Launchpads, each focused on one of the core domains required for rapid CDR scale-up:

1. Voluntary Private Sector Demand Launchpad (WBCSD)

A cohort-based program enabling companies to make their first “learning purchases,” build credible CDR strategies, and send early demand signals to the market. The Launchpad provides business tools, capacity building, and a peer-learning environment to support adoption of removals within net-zero plans.

Dr. Jennie Dodson, Senior Director at WBCSD, said:
“We are very excited to be part of the Plan to Accelerate Action on Accelerating Carbon Removals. Through this effort, WBCSD will establish the Carbon Removal Launchpad to mobilize corporate demand for high-integrity removals. The Launchpad will create a platform for peer learning, joint procurement pilots, and standard-setting — accelerating the integration of CDR into company net-zero strategies. And critically, it will help companies build balanced removals portfolios across both nature-based and technological pathways, supporting integrity, durability, and long-term value.”

2. Government Policy & Regulation Launchpad (GONE & partners)

A structured space for national and subnational governments to discuss policy pathways and enable knowledge-sharing on topics of critical interest such as policy integration, all in order to establish enabling conditions for scale to turn ambition into action.

Asser Berling Rasmussen, Director of International Relations in the Danish Ministry of Climate, Energy, and Utilities:

“The Group of Negative Emitters (GONE) recognizes that achieving net-zero and subsequently net-negative emissions hinges on the integration of CDR at scale—not as a substitute for mitigation, but as an essential complement. Yet, global CDR deployment still remains limited, often constrained by inadequate financing and political uncertainty. GONE is a group of leading countries at the forefront of national net-negative emissions commitments and carbon dioxide removal (CDR) innovation, coming together to accelerate the needed coordination of global efforts.”

3. Industrial Integration Launchpad (Industry partners)

A technical and strategic forum supporting hard-to-abate sectors—construction, wastewater, biomass, mining, waste processing—to explore direct integration of CDR pathways into industrial facilities, value chains, and waste streams.

Together, the Launchpads create a multi-stakeholder engine for acceleration, bridging companies, policymakers, and industrial actors in a shared implementation effort.

Anchored in the 2030 CDR Implementation Target

The Mutirão supports the 2030 CDR Implementation Target, inspired by and drawing directly on existing near‑term ambition frameworks including the Mission Innovation CDR Mission, the Energy Transitions Commission’s Paris‑aligned pathways, and the High‑Level Champions’ Breakthrough Targets. These efforts collectively highlight the need for substantial deployment of both conventional nature-based removals and novel durable removal pathways by 2030. Each is critical and complementary, with nature-based systems providing rapid drawdown and co-benefits, while durable technological pathways supply the long-term, high-integrity storage essential for net-zero and net-negative transitions.

While the Mutirão does not set a prescriptive global number, it is firmly rooted in the scientific and policy consensus that the world must achieve meaningful, measurable progress on both nature-based and technological CDR this decade. The target therefore serves as a unifying frame for the kind of cross-sector action required before 2030 to remain Paris-aligned.

While the Mutirão does not set a prescriptive global number, it is firmly rooted in the scientific and policy consensus that the world must achieve meaningful, measurable progress on CDR this decade. The target therefore serves as a unifying frame for the kind of cross‑sector action required before 2030 to remain Paris‑aligned.

Exponential Growth: An Essential Trajectory

The Mutirão is informed by the scientific consensus that the world must move from millions to billions of tonnes of durable removals by mid-century—requiring exponential growth over the next 15–20 years.

Johan Falk, CEO & Co-Founder of the Exponential Roadmap Initiative, said:
“The science is clear: to get from today’s millions to the billions of tonnes of removals needed by mid-century, we need exponential growth starting now. The CDR Mutirão creates exactly the cross-sector collaboration engine required to accelerate learning, deployment, and market formation with integrity. We’re proud that the Removals Action Guide can support this effort, and we look forward to helping drive the exponential trajectory needed to keep 1.5°C within reach.”

A First for the COP Action Agenda — Paired with the Global Carbon Harvest Coalition

The CDR Mutirão launches alongside the Global Carbon Harvest Coalition, which will coordinate large-scale agricultural field trials, harmonized MRV development, and methodological readiness for market inclusion. Together, these represent the first-ever formal integration of carbon removals into a COP Action Agenda, marking a major turning point for the field.

Launch at COP30 and the Road to 2026

The CDR Mutirão was introduced at the COP30 Action Agenda session in the Blue Zone gathering leaders across sectors to outline its vision. All three Launchpads will begin full multi-year programming in early 2026, with annual reporting and collective progress milestones through 2030.

The Road Ahead

The CDR Mutirão aims to shift CDR from a future aspiration to a present-tense implementation challenge, building the peer communities, tools, and coordinated action needed to drive meaningful progress in the next five years.

Chris Sherwood, Secretary General of the Negative Emissions Platform (NEP), which hosted the first ever CDR pavilion at a COP in Belem, sees the timing of the new collaborative platforms launch in bigger picture terms: “CDR has taken its place in the central agenda of global climate action. This is an important step forward. While the challenges ahead remain daunting, the CDR Mutirão, which turns collective ambition into collective action, will help us grow CDR to the required scale and thereby begin to undo the damage done to our planet for generations.”

The post Introducing the CDR Mutirão: A New Era of Collaboration for Carbon Dioxide Removal Launches at COP30. appeared first on CDR30.

This post originally appeared on the Tapovanam Biochar website.

Author: Sonam Meena, Environmental Research Analyst at Tapovanam Biochar

Reframing Carbon Removal: From Tonnes to Transformation

When we talk about carbon dioxide removal (CDR), the conversation often starts and ends with the number: tonnes of CO₂ removed. But focusing solely on the carbon metric misses the bigger picture. High-quality CDR isn’t just about drawing down carbon; it’s about restoring the planet’s ecological balance and generating ripple effects that sustain both people and nature. 

From reforestation in tropical landscapes to biochar application on farmlands, well-designed CDR projects can rebuild degraded ecosystems, improve water and soil quality, and enhance biodiversity. These environmental co-benefits transform carbon removal from a narrow climate intervention into a broader catalyst for regeneration.

Why Co-Benefits Matter

Every tonne of CO₂ removed through nature-based or engineered means carries a potential environmental story. When projects are designed holistically- integrating carbon, ecology, and community, they can: 

● Soil & Ecosystem Health: Enhance soil organic carbon (SOC) levels; Boost microbial diversity and biological activity; Increase water infiltration and retention. 

● Agricultural Productivity & Food Security: Increase crop yields sustainably; Reduce dependency on synthetic fertilizers; Empower rural economies. 

● Water & Hydrological Benefits: Reduce nutrient runoff and eutrophication; Replenish groundwater and regulate hydrology; Improve watershed integrity. 

● Biodiversity & Habitat Restoration: Rehabilitate degraded lands; Support pollinators and beneficial species; Create ecological corridors. 

● Climate & System Resilience: Moderate local microclimates; Reduce Global warming; Enhance adaptation capacity. 

The quality of CDR lies not just in the permanence or additionality of carbon storage, but in how well it coexists and enhances local ecosystems. Because CDR is climate action, but climate action is not just removing carbon dioxide; it’s about balancing the ecosystem and restoring natural capital.

Among these interconnected benefits, soil emerges as the silent cornerstone of climate resilience. It is where carbon, water, and biodiversity converge: a living system that underpins ecosystem productivity and planetary balance. When CDR interventions restore soil vitality, they don’t just lock away carbon; they reactivate nature’s most enduring engine of regeneration.

Soil Health: The Hidden Carbon Reservoir

According to the IPBES Global Assessment (2019), up to 75% of Earth’s land surface has been significantly altered, with over one-third of degraded land losing productivity and carbon storage potential. 

Soils store three times more carbon than the atmosphere, making them a critical yet underappreciated part of the CDR equation. 

Every teaspoon of healthy soil contains billions of microorganisms, each playing a role in nutrient cycling, disease suppression, and plant growth. Together, these unseen organisms drive the biogeochemical cycles that sustain plant and ecosystem health: They decompose organic matter, fix nitrogen, solubilize phosphorus, suppress pathogens, and even communicate with plant roots through intricate chemical signaling networks. This invisible world collapses when soils degrade through intensive agriculture, erosion, or chemical overuse. This living engine falters. 

High-quality CDR interventions like biochar and compost rejuvenate this hidden ecosystem.

Soil microbes tell a story – of resilience, adaptation, and cooperation

Practices like biochar application and regenerative agriculture not only capture carbon but also improve soil structure, water retention, and nutrient cycling. Reforesting riparian zones, restoring wetlands, or improving soil structure in farmlands all nurture native flora and fauna. 

Biochar provides a porous and protective microhabitat for microorganisms. Its honeycomb-like structure offers refuge from predators, buffers against pH and moisture fluctuations, and adsorbs organic molecules that microbes use as energy sources. In degraded soils, where nutrients are scarce and conditions harsh, this biochar “housing effect” can dramatically boost microbial survival and activity. 

● Research from Lal et al. (2020) estimates that global soils could sequester up to 2–5 gigatonnes of CO₂ annually through improved land management, biochar, and regenerative farming. 

● A 1% increase in SOC can enhance the soil’s water-holding capacity by up to 20,000 liters per hectare, directly improving drought resilience (NRCS, USDA). 

● Biochar, when applied to agricultural soils, has been shown to increase SOC stability by up to 50-60% compared to compost alone, due to its recalcitrant carbon structure (Lehmann & Joseph, Biochar for Environmental Management, 2021). 

● Studies have shown that biochar can increase microbial biomass carbon (MBC) by 25-45% within a single growing season, depending on the type of feedstock, pyrolysis temperature, and application rate (Zheng et al., Soil Biology & Biochemistry, 2020). But these numbers only tell part of the story – the functionality of microbial life improves too.

● Improved microbial diversity also enhances nitrogen use efficiency and reduces emissions of nitrous oxide (N₂O), a potent greenhouse gas.

Ecosystem Resilience and Climate Adaptation

Environmental systems are interconnected. A soil rich in carbon and microbes grows healthier plants; healthier vegetation supports pollinators and wildlife; and thriving ecosystems buffer against climate extremes. 

Projects integrating biochar with regenerative agriculture have demonstrated: 

● 20–30% yield improvement in smallholder farms (FAO, 2022) 

● Enhanced drought tolerance due to improved root zone moisture 

● Reduced dependency on synthetic fertilizers by up to 50%, minimizing nitrogen pollution 

● Field trials have shown biochar can reduce nitrate leaching by 30-70% and phosphate runoff by up to 80% (Jeffery et al., Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment, 2015). 

These cascading benefits embody a principle central to ecological science – harmony in nature. Every restored hectare amplifies resilience across the landscape, creating climate solutions that endure.

From Co-Benefits to Core Benefits

As the CDR ecosystem matures, the line between “co-benefits” and “core benefits” is beginning to blur. Projects are now evaluated not just for carbon durability, but for ecological integrity and social value. Verification frameworks are evolving to capture these broader outcomes – integrating biodiversity indicators, soil health metrics, and water data into carbon accounting. 

In a world facing both biodiversity loss and climate change, the most valuable tonne of CO₂ removed may be the one that also revives a forest, replenishes a watershed, or restores a living soil.

As investors, policymakers, and developers expand the CDR landscape, the challenge is clear: Don’t just count carbon – cultivate ecosystems.

The post Beyond Carbon: The Environmental Co-Benefits of High-Quality Carbon Removal appeared first on CDR30.

Author: Alexander O’Loughnane, Young Leader Volunteer at CDR30

Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is no longer an optional strategy in climate action; it is the infrastructure necessary to achieve 2030 and 2050 net-zero targets. CDR complements, not replaces, emissions reductions, addressing residual emissions from hard-to-abate sectors that cannot reach absolute zero on practical timescales. Each year of delay in scaling CDR adds €120–€190 billion in additional mitigation costs, according to European Environment Agency modelling, making future net-zero targets harder to reach and threatening climate credibility.

Net Zero and CDR’s Role

The term “net zero” denotes a state where greenhouse gas emissions are balanced by removals from the atmosphere. Unlike “carbon neutral,” which may allow indefinite fossil fuel use offset by temporary credits, net zero requires durable, permanent removals. This distinction is critical: While emissions reductions must remain the priority, CDR helps address emissions that are technologically or economically prohibitive to eliminate. Leading standards define permanent CDR as geological storage for 1,000+ years.

2030 and 2050 CDR Targets

The IPCC requires a 45% emissions reduction by 2030 and net zero CO₂ by 2050 to limit warming to 1.5°C. Emissions cuts alone cannot achieve these targets due to technological and economic limits in hard-to-abate sectors.

CDR must work alongside aggressive emissions reductions to close the gap.

According to the Smith School of Enterprise and Environment’s 2023 report The State of Carbon Dioxide Removal, CDR must grow 140–180 times from less than 50 million tonnes annually to 6–16 billion tonnes by 2050. This demands 40% annual growth starting immediately.

Concrete milestones: 

– By 2030: CDR capacity must reach 1–1.5 Gt CO₂ annually (a 25–100 fold increase over 2023 levels, per Smith School analysis).

– By 2050: 5–22 Gt capacity needed, depending on emissions trajectory.

The risk of delay: The IPCC warns that postponing emissions reductions would require cuts 70% faster after 2030 to meet 2°C pathways, compounding economic and social strain. 

Climate Action Tracker data reveals a significant emission gap: under current national policies and pledges, 19–27 GtCO₂e are emitted annually versus the 1.5°C-consistent pathway requirement, underscoring the urgency of massive CDR scale-up alongside deep emission cuts.

The Cost of Delay

Time is critical. Every year of postponed CDR deployment increases costs and narrows pathways to net zero. The European Environment Agency estimates that postponement adds €120–€190 billion annually in additional climate mitigation expenses.

Delayed action creates “lock-in,” limiting options to either overshooting climate targets or accepting disruptive reductions later. Early action avoids compounding costs, economic strain, and loss of fiscal and technical capacity.

Building Climate Credibility

Early CDR deployment strengthens climate credibility, aligning national and corporate net-zero commitments with tangible action. The UK’s Net Zero Strategy plans to include GGR’s in its emissions trading scheme by 2029, representing the first legally binding engineered CDR targets (5 million tonnes by 2030, rising to 75–81 million tonnes by 2050). This integration demonstrates seriousness and builds trust in long-term climate ambitions, enhancing market confidence and unlocking financing frameworks essential for scaling.

Why Early Investment Reduces Costs

Investing early in CDR builds foundational infrastructure, de-risks technology deployment, and signals market demand.

Financing Mechanisms:

– Over $2.3 billion in private investment has been deployed across removal pathways since 2021, according to Unbound Summits research.

– The voluntary carbon market (VCM) is a primary revenue source. According to CDR.fyi, the market contracted 15.48 million tonnes of carbon removal credits in H1 2025, representing 78% year-over-year growth from 2024. However, deployment lags significantly as SINTEF data shows only 113,700 tonnes of durable CDR credits were delivered in Q2 2025, revealing operational and financing hurdles.

– Long-term offtake agreements provide developers with revenue certainty and buyers with price security. Indigo Agriculture has secured multi-year agreements with tech giants, while biochar suppliers have locked in offtake agreements covering up to 62% of high-quality capacity for 2025.

– The World Economic Forum’s First Movers Coalition aggregates early buyer commitments (50,000+ tonnes of removal or $25 million by 2030) for solutions capable of storing CO₂ over 1,000 years, driving risk reduction and technology diversification.

Early buyer participation and multi-pathway procurement foster robust market signals, support technology maturation, reduce investment risk, and build supply chain resilience necessary for long-term climate targets.

Critical Financing Challenges:

Despite momentum, Sylvera research indicates 64% of CDR suppliers plan fundraising in 2025, with 85% requiring capital by the end of 2026. Early-stage demand, especially through diverse buyer portfolios and offtake agreements, helps overcome these financing obstacles and validates multiple removal solutions.

Blended Finance & Policy Support:

Public-private partnerships and blended finance mechanisms such as combining grants, tax credits, and market mechanisms enable technology viability and portfolio approaches that attract institutional capital. The UK is investing £100 million in CDR demonstration programmes including biochar and enhanced rock weathering, while Germany has proposed €476 million in federal CDR procurement funding and is advancing BECCS integration into existing bioenergy infrastructure.

Technology Diversification for Scale

Meeting removal targets requires a diversified mix of nature-based, hybrid, and engineered solutions. Industry analysis shows biochar and nature-based methods offer cost-effective, near-term removals (£80–£1,000 per tonne), whilst engineered solutions deliver permanence and scalability at higher cost but are necessary for durable impact.

Research emphasizes that no single CDR technology has emerged as dominant, making diversification essential for reducing exposure to delays or regulatory changes in any single pathway. Portfolio construction enables companies to purchase immediate removals whilst simultaneously investing in emerging solutions, balancing delivery and risk.

Rigorous MRV Standards

Maintaining climate credibility as CDR scales depends fundamentally on rigorous monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV). Digital MRV (dMRV) platforms are replacing slow audits with automated, independent verification ensuring transparency and cost efficiency. Industry standards establish benchmarks for permanence, additionality, quantification, leakage accounting, and transparency being adopted by multiple verifiers and registries.

Key MRV Principles:

– Permanence: Demonstrate durability (100–1,000+ years per Carbon Direct standards).

– Additionality: Prove removals are project-driven.

– Leakage: Monitor for unintended emissions.

– Environmental/Social Impact: Ensure positive or neutral ecosystem and community effects.

Equitable Risk Allocation

As CDR scales, emerging frameworks allocate costs and risks based on historic and current emissions shares. Research emphasizes fair burden sharing, including blended public-private financing reflecting policy and market responsibility.

Technology-specific governance addresses distinct equity risks. For example, marine carbon removal governance must protect ocean health and fishing community rights, whilst agricultural carbon removal must protect farmer autonomy and food security.

Capacity building and knowledge transfer ensure developing nations and smallholder farmers access technical expertise, financing, and decision-making authority. Market signals now reward projects meeting rigorous equity and environmental standards, creating incentives for climate-justice-aligned scaling.

Policy and International Governance

Countries are rapidly enacting CDR policy frameworks:

– United Kingdom: First binding engineered CDR target (5 million tonnes by 2030, 75–81 million by 2050), £100 million for demonstration, CDR integrated into emissions trading scheme by 2028–2029.

– Germany: €476 million in federal CDR procurement funding; BECCS integration into bioenergy infrastructure.

– Nordic countries and Switzerland: Range of subsidies and carbon pricing mechanisms for nature-based and engineered removals.

– COP30 CDR30 Pavilion: Coordinated by the Negative Emissions Platform, this represents the first-ever dedicated diplomatic space for CDR in UN climate negotiations history. Over 90 organizations, including companies, NGOs, research institutions, and philanthropies, are collaborating to advance credible, durable carbon removal solutions.

Strong international governance, harmonized standards, and transparent MRV are needed to prevent greenwashing and cement CDR as a real climate solution rather than a reputational tool for companies.

Conclusion: The Imperative for Immediate Action

Climate physics, economics, and credibility demand immediate CDR deployment alongside aggressive emissions reductions. Current annual CDR of approximately 50 million tonnes is dwarfed by the 6–16 billion tonnes needed by 2050 (a 120–300 fold increase). Every year of delay compounds costs and limits feasible net-zero pathways.

According to the Smith School of Enterprise and Environment, early investment leads to supply chain maturity, price certainty, risk reduction, and infrastructure building. Strong governance, industry standards, and rigorous MRV guard against greenwashing and build trust for policy and market actors.

As COP30 elevates CDR to the centre of global diplomacy through the CDR30 Pavilion, the mandate is unambiguous: Governments, corporations, and investors must act now to scale CDR through diversified portfolios, robust financing mechanisms, and credible international frameworks. CDR, working in tandem with deep emissions cuts, is essential for climate credibility, affordable mitigation, and planetary stability. The time to act is now and not in 2050.

The post The Case for Urgent CDR Scale up: Meeting 2030 and 2050 Net Zero Targets appeared first on CDR30.

This post originally appeared on Sylvera’s website.

Author: Hugo Lakin, CDR Partnerships Manager at Sylvera

The path to one billion metric tons (a gigaton) of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) from the atmosphere annually represents one of humanity’s most ambitious industrial scale-ups. 

This journey will be fraught with technical hurdles, economic constraints, and the ever-present risk of repeating mistakes from other industries’ rapid expansions. Here’s what the sector needs to get right.

The Gigaton Goal

Climate models are unambiguous: limiting warming to 1.5°C or even 2°C requires not just dramatic emissions cuts but also significant carbon removal. The IPCC estimates we’ll need to remove between 5-10 gigatons of CO₂ annually by mid-century. 

So, that first gigaton isn’t the finish line, it’s the proof of concept that industrial-scale carbon removal is possible.

The challenge is technical, economic, political, and logistical. We basically need to build an entirely new global industry, and we need to do it right.

Milestone 1: Establishing Robust Measurement and Verification Standards

The Foundation That Everything Else Depends On

Before scaling to gigaton levels, the industry must solve its credibility problem. Early carbon offset markets were plagued by over-crediting, double-counting, and projects that didn’t deliver promised removals. Carbon removal cannot afford to repeat these mistakes.

Key actions include developing standardized protocols for measuring carbon removal across different methods, implementing third-party verification requirements that are genuinely independent, and creating tech-first registries that track every ton removed from capture to permanent storage. 

Increasingly critical is the role of independent ratings providers that assess project quality and help buyers navigate an increasingly complex market. At Sylvera we’re building the due diligence infrastructure that allows buyers and investors to identify risks across the CDR market and ensure that every dollar spent is going to high-integrity projects. 

For CDR to maintain public trust and policy support, verification must be ironclad from day one.

Milestone 2: Diversifying the Technology Portfolio

The carbon removal sector encompasses dozens of approaches, from direct air capture and enhanced weathering to biochar and ocean alkalinity enhancement. Each has different cost curves, scalability potential, permanence characteristics, and environmental co-benefits or risks.

The mistake to avoid is premature convergence on a single “winner.” History shows that technological diversity is crucial during rapid scale-up phases. The energy sector’s experience is instructive – solar, wind, hydro, and nuclear all play roles in decarbonization. 

Similarly, CDR will likely need a portfolio approach.

Currently, nature-based solutions like reforestation are cheaper and faster to deploy but offer less permanent storage. Engineered solutions like direct air capture are more expensive but provide millennial-scale permanence. The path to a gigaton requires advancing both tracks simultaneously while remaining open to breakthrough approaches.

Milestone 3: Building the Physical Infrastructure

Reaching gigaton scale means constructing massive physical infrastructure: pipelines to transport captured CO₂, geological storage sites with monitoring systems, mineralization facilities, and energy systems to power it all. This infrastructure doesn’t exist and will require investments measured in hundreds of billions of dollars.

The renewable energy sector’s expansion offers both inspiration and warning. Solar and wind succeeded by dramatically reducing costs through manufacturing scale and supply chain optimization. But the buildout also faced permitting delays, transmission bottlenecks, and community opposition that slowed deployment.

For CDR, the infrastructure challenge is particularly acute because optimal sites for carbon capture (near biomass or clean energy) may not align with ideal storage locations. We need coordinated regional hubs that co-locate capture, processing, and storage facilities while minimizing transport costs and environmental impacts.

The critical lesson is starting infrastructure planning now, not after demand materializes. Lead times for major projects can exceed a decade.

Milestone 4: Securing Adequate, Sustained Financing

Carbon removal technologies face a classic valley of death: too expensive for pure commercial deployment, too capital-intensive for traditional venture funding, and too risky for conservative infrastructure investors. Bridging this gap requires creative financing mechanisms.

Advanced market commitments, where buyers pledge to purchase carbon removal at specific prices once projects deliver, have shown promise. Stripe’s Frontier initiative, backed by major corporations, has committed nearly $1 billion to purchase carbon removal. 

We’ve also started to see exciting developments in debt financing with banks like Standard Chartered, JP Morgan and Finalta Capital deploying crucial project finance.  

However, the scale of financing needed dwarfs current commitments. A gigaton of removal at $200 per ton (an optimistic future cost) means $200 billion in annual revenue. Getting there requires patient capital willing to fund first-of-a-kind facilities that will be more expensive than their successors.

Governments also have a key role to play in derisking investment across the industry. Schemes, such as tax credits, compliance or direct procurement, ensure financiers have confidence that the developer will be able to deliver. 

The solar industry’s experience with feed-in tariffs in Germany and production tax credits in the US demonstrates how policy can kickstart industries. 

The mistake to avoid is premature subsidy withdrawal, solar faced boom-bust cycles when support was pulled too quickly.

Milestone 5: Navigating the Permitting and Regulatory Maze

Scaling to a gigaton means operating in dozens of countries with different regulatory frameworks, environmental standards, and approval processes. Projects will need permits for land use, water consumption, geological storage, and environmental impact.

The carbon capture sector has already encountered regulatory challenges. Some direct air capture projects have faced multi-year permitting delays despite relatively small footprints. Underground storage sites require extensive geological surveys and long-term liability frameworks that many jurisdictions haven’t established.

The lesson from infrastructure projects worldwide is that early regulatory engagement beats late-stage confrontation. Companies should work with regulators to develop appropriate frameworks rather than pushing for regulatory shortcuts that might undermine safety or public trust.

Community consultation deserves special attention. Renewable energy projects have sometimes failed due to inadequate local engagement, leaving communities feeling steamrolled. 

Carbon removal projects, especially those involving pipelines, underground storage or land use changes, need social license to operate. This has already caused delays in some CCS projects, as communities have voted against pipelines due to safety fears.

Milestone 6: Driving Down Costs Through Learning and Scale

Every successful technology follows a learning curve: costs decrease predictably with cumulative production. Solar panel costs have fallen 90% over the past decade. Battery costs have followed a similar trajectory. Carbon removal must achieve comparable cost reductions to reach gigaton scale affordably.

Current direct air capture costs range from $400-$1000 per ton. Models suggest costs could fall to $100-$200 per ton at scale, but this requires deploying many facilities to generate learning. The chicken-and-egg problem is that facilities won’t be built without demand, but costs won’t fall without facilities.

This is where public procurement, grants and subsidies become critical. Government purchase commitments can provide the demand certainty needed for first movers to invest in capacity. Grants can allow research and development, accelerating innovation and driving down learning curves. Subsidies, such as the Contracts for Difference model proposed by the UK, open up high priced projects to a wider market, providing them with demand at a critical time.

The mistake to avoid is expecting linear cost reductions. Learning curves plateau, hit unexpected barriers, and require deliberate innovation, not just more production. Managing expectations about cost trajectories  and scaling speeds will be crucial for maintaining support during inevitable setbacks.

Key Mistakes to Avoid: Lessons from Adjacent Industries

Over-Subsidizing Winners, Creating ‘Zombie’ Companies

The biofuels sector saw massive investment and subsidies flow to corn ethanol despite marginal climate benefits and problematic land-use impacts. Political considerations dominated scientific assessment. Carbon removal must maintain rigorous standards for what qualifies for support, avoiding the trap of subsidizing methods that don’t deliver genuine climate impact.

Ignoring Environmental Justice Concerns

Fossil fuel infrastructure has historically been sited in low-income communities and communities of color, creating environmental justice issues that haunt those industries today. Carbon removal infrastructure must be deployed equitably, with meaningful community input and benefit-sharing mechanisms.

Letting Perfect Be the Enemy of Good

Carbon removal won’t be perfectly clean, risk-free, or without tradeoffs. Waiting for ideal solutions means continued climate damage. The sector  needs to embrace adaptive management: deploy the best available approaches while researching better ones, maintaining flexibility to shift resources as learning accumulates.

The Path Forward

Reaching the first gigaton of annual carbon removal will take decades of sustained effort, hundreds of billions in investment, and unwavering commitment despite inevitable setbacks.

Success requires:

– Establishing credible measurement and verification infrastructure immediately

– Maintaining technological diversity while driving down costs across multiple approaches

– Building physical infrastructure and supply chains at unprecedented speed

– Creating financing mechanisms that bridge the valley of death

– Developing regulatory frameworks that ensure safety without paralyzing innovation

– Centering equity and environmental justice throughout deployment

– Learning from other sectors’ mistakes while moving with necessary urgency

The first gigaton of CDR won’t solve climate change, but it will demonstrate whether carbon removal can scale at the speed and cost required. The challenge is doing it responsibly while keeping pace with what the climate actually demands.

The post Capturing the First Gigaton of CDR: Milestones and Mistakes to Avoid appeared first on CDR30.

This podcast episode from The Carbon Removal Show first aired on May 26, 2025.

In this episode:

Building the Future Without a Manual: We meet a company navigating what it means to innovate when the rulebook hasn’t been written yet (and may be printed in two jurisdictions at once).

How CDR Is Getting Heard: Industry lobbying isn’t just for big corporates – our startup ecosystem can also get involved. But we learn than misperceptions around CDR (it’s not CCS!) are still widespread among policymakers.

Voluntary Policy Is Still Policy: We explore the de facto power of the Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTi), which influences climate action across thousands of the world’s biggest companies – despite being entirely voluntary. But will its guidance on removals give the sector the boost it needs?

Watch Out for the Global South: We all know that the future of CDR isn’t just in Europe and North America. But how can policy help build benefit-sharing frameworks, bring legal clarity, and drive investment confidence around the world?

Think Global, Act Local: While attention is often on the big-hitters, are local initiatives quietly shaping the next wave of CDR? Bonus: you too can be a policy influencer without wearing a tie.

Now It’s Your Turn: After 15+ hours of interviews and more acronyms than we can legally fit on this page, we reflect on the biggest takeaways from this miniseries – complexity, possibility, and the role each of us has to play in shaping what comes next.

Featuring:

Guest insights from

– Oliver Grogono (Standard Gas Technologies)

– Nikolaus Wohlgemuth (Carbonfuture)

– Chris Sherwood, Elisabeth Harding and Lambrini Margariti (Negative Emissions Platform)

– Robert Höglund (Milkywire)

– Shilpika Gautam (Opna)

– Omoloro Meshack (CAP-A)

– Christopher Neidl (OpenAir Collective)

– Christoph Beuttler (Carbon Gap)

– Hosts Emily Swaddle and Tom Previte

– Producer Ben Weaver-Hincks

The post [Podcast] CDR Policy Deep Dive – Part 3: The Road Ahead appeared first on CDR30.

This post originally appeared on Supercritical’s website.

Author: Mai Bui, Director of Climate Science at Supercritical

What’s changing

Several jurisdictions are integrating carbon removal into their emissions-trading systems (ETS), each on its own timeline. 

Japan was the first country to accept engineered carbon dioxide removal (CDR) in its national ETS. The country’s GX-ETS, now in a voluntary trial phase, accepts credits from technologies like bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), direct air capture (DAC), and coastal blue carbon alongside domestic J-Credits for biochar and forestry. The system is designed to transition to a mandatory phase in 2026, signaling that engineered CDR is becoming an integral part of Japan’s long-term climate infrastructure, rather than a voluntary experiment.

In the European Union (EU), issuances of carbon removal credits will begin in 2026, with full integration into the EU ETS planned for after 2030. The United Kingdom (UK) plans to have carbon removal operational in the UK ETS by the end of 2029. Policy design in these markets generally favors engineered approaches such as BECCS, DAC, and biochar.

Elsewhere, Australia, China, and New Zealand already count forestry removals in compliance markets and have signaled interest in expanding into engineered CDR. Brazil is later to the party but gathering momentum: its national ETS cleared approval in late 2024 and is now in design, with a role for carbon removal expected.

Denmark is a leading example, testing dual‑use models which allow domestic carbon removals to be sold as CDR credits on the voluntary market to address corporate targets whilst also supporting Denmark’s nationally determined contribution without double-counting. For businesses, that means high‑quality credits can legitimately contribute to national climate action and corporate net‑zero claims.

Meanwhile, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is set to launch a net‑zero standard at COP30 (November 2025) that defines what a credible decarbonization strategy looks like. Early drafts point to strict permanence criteria of 100 years or more and tighter expectations for monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV). Because the effort aligns with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol and has broad corporate credibility, it could quickly become the default benchmark for companies aiming to future‑proof net‑zero plans—and for suppliers, a clearer basis for investment in high‑integrity removals.

Durability is the direction of travel

Across these policy tracks, the common thread is durability. Policymakers are converging on permanence thresholds in the 100–200-year range. Nature-based solutions risk being sidelined unless new methodologies are introduced. 

This tension is playing out in Article 6.4 negotiations. Early drafts pushed permanence rules that would have excluded many nature‑based credits; after pressure from civil society groups, negotiators reopened the text. One emerging solution is using permanence conversion factors, which enable comparisons of CDR methods across different carbon storage timeframes, e.g., decadal vs. century vs. millennia.

What this means for buyers

– Methodologies are converging: Registries are aligning their methods with national frameworks so credits can count in both voluntary and compliance systems. For buyers, that means today’s “high-integrity” credits could become tomorrow’s “compliance-eligible” assets.

– Verification is your responsibility: Registries and regulators approve frameworks, not individual projects. Recent scandals have shown why buyers can’t rely on a label alone. Always confirm data quality, delivery evidence, and audit documentation before you purchase.

– Prices are becoming clearer: Public and compliance markets are starting to reveal real benchmarks. Use that data to budget for long-term procurement and avoid overpaying for under-verified tonnes.

– The rules are catching up: Portfolios built for permanence and traceability will be valuable when regulation arrives. Those chasing cheap offsets will face re-verification or write-downs later.

To navigate these shifts, smart buyers lead with compliance. That means treating CDR as a regulated commodity and keeping documentation and records audit-ready. The smart move now is to buy as if the rules already apply.

What to expect at COP30

COP30 will bring these threads together. The ISO standard is expected to drop, inviting comparisons to SBTi and sparking debate. Article 6.4 will define (or further complicate) how removals are treated under the Paris Agreement. Bilateral agreements will test how removals move across borders, setting early norms for ownership, accounting, and market access.

Perfect alignment won’t land overnight. But the direction is clear: voluntary and compliance markets are moving closer, standards are maturing, and public funding is beginning to flow. For companies willing to engage early, carbon removal delivers more than offsets—it builds differentiation, resilience, and a real stake in shaping the market to come.

Go deeper: Building compliance-ready CDR portfolios: A guide for corporate buyers navigating the future landscape

The post CDR rules are coming: A practical outlook ahead of COP30 appeared first on CDR30.

This post originally appeared on the Inspiratus Technologies LinkedIn blog.

Author: Wietse Vroom, Chief Technology Officer at Inspiratus Technologies

There’s something daunting about thinking of carbon only as a problem to be resolved; as a waste to be cleaned up from our atmosphere. This feeling doesn’t get any better when we consider the magnitude of the challenge ahead of us to bring carbon removal technologies to climate-relevante scale in the coming decades (∼7-9 GtCO2 per year).

Hence, it is refreshing to shift the perspective and see carbon as a potentially valuable resource instead. And to considers the removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as an element in a wider framework that highlights the potential rather than the problem that carbon seems to represent these days.

Enter the emerging notion of the Carbon Economy, which envisions carbon not as waste, but as a productive asset that can circulate through ecosystems and industries in a way that enhances value, resilience, and sustainability. At the intersection of agriculture, energy, and carbon removal, biochar exemplifies this philosophy. It simultaneously locks atmospheric carbon into stable solid form and activates that carbon to perform useful work in soils and industrial systems.

By creating a bridge between carbon dioxide removal (CDR) markets and agricultural productivity, biochar offers a dual value proposition: generating certified negative emissions while improving the foundations of agricultural health and productivity. Let’s unpack this idea.

Biochar: a stable carbon from waste biomass

Biochar is a solid carbon-rich material produced through the pyrolysis of biomass – typically agricultural or forestry residues – at high termperatures, under limited oxygen. This process converts unstable organic carbon into a highly stable form that can persist in soils for centuries. Unlike other carbon removal pathways that rely on geological or oceanic storage of carbon, biochar integrates carbon storage directly into the biosphere’s nutrient and water cycles, aligning with the logic of circular carbon management.

However, the real opportunity lies in how this stable carbon can generate multiple streams of value across the agricultural and energy sectors. Biochar is not merely a carbon sink – it is an enabler of soil regeneration, waste valorization, and decentralized renewable energy production.

Unlocking Value for Farming Communities

When discussing the ‘co-benefits’ of biochar carbon removal, the advantages for agriculture stand out. Biochar has a unique capacity to improve soil health and remediate degraded soils. When incorporated into soil, biochar enhances porosity, water retention, and cation exchange capacity, improving both the physical and chemical environment for root growth and microbial life. It also binds heavy metals and organic pollutants, remediating degraded soils and making them safe for cultivation. This function is particularly relevant in regions where industrial or mining activities have compromised agricultural productivity.

Cacao and vegetable farmers in Peru are facing difficulties due to elevated levels of cadmium and lead in some agricultural soils. Inspiratus Technologies, a Peruvian biochar company, is conducting field trials to evaluate if biochar can be used to immobilize these heavy metals in the soil and avoid them from being assimilated by the crops growing on these soils.

Biochar is also known to improve crop yields and reducing fertilizer dependency. Biochar reduces nutrient leaching and nitrogen losses, improving fertilizer-use efficiency and lowering input costs. Over time, farmers can maintain or increase yields while relying less on synthetic fertilizers—both a financial and environmental gain.

Finally, biochar’s sponge-like structure increases the soil’s ability to retain water and buffer drought stress, allowing plants to maintain growth during dry periods. This quality is crucial for climate adaptation, especially for smallholder farmers in regions with limited irrigation resources.

Creating Value from Waste Streams and Reducing Air Pollution

Many agricultural regions struggle with residue management – crop residues, husks, pruning waste, or animal manure that are often burned, releasing CO₂, methane, and particulates. In the context of Peru, the traditional burning of sugarcane, is a notorious problem, leading to air pollution and respiratory health issues in surrounding communities. By providing an alternative to burning harvest residues, farming communities can transform waste into a valuable resource, avoiding air pollution and public health risks associated with open burning.

Biochar as Part of a Broader Carbon Economy

The examples of how biochar is a valuable resource in farming underlines how carbon should not (just) be seen as a pollutant to eliminate, but as a resource to manage intelligently. This principle underpins a broader Carbon Economy, where carbon fluxes are directed toward productive, regenerative purposes rather than linear emission pathways.

The dual use of biochar as a carbon sequestration pathway, and a useful soil amendment exemplifies this logic. But there is more: the process of pyrolysis to produce biochar also generates co-products: syngas and bio-oil. These represent additional renewable energy sources that can be used for heat, power, or chemical feedstocks, or can be used in other applications (e.g. road surfaces). These outputs and their applications further increase the economic viability of biochar systems, reduce reliance on fossil fuels, and strengthen the overall carbon balance.

Finally, not all biomass must become biochar. Using agricultural residues directly as a renewable fuel in place of fossil sources reduces emissions and provides decentralized energy. Other applications can also be identified, for example as feed or bedding material in the context of animal husbandry. These applications do not lead to carbon sequestration, but they highlight the versatility of biomass as a resource for a wide range of applications and potential revenue streams, without the need for advanced technologies.

Financing the Transition: Carbon Credits as a flywheel

Scaling biochar deployment is often linked to carbon credit markets, where stable carbon storage is monetized as a carbon cleanup service. While such credits provide essential early incentives and de-risk investments, they need not be the sole economic driver.

Trevithihck’s 1802 steam locomotive, which used a flywheel to evenly distribute the power of its single cylinder- Image from Birmingham Museums Trust (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Instead, in a mature Carbon Economy, carbon credits function as a flywheel. At early stages, they lower entry barriers for new projects and provide reliable income from the CDR value chain. Over time, they complement a diversified portfolio of revenues from soil amendments, yield improvements, renewable energy production, waste management, and environmental remediation.

The goal is to evolve toward plural, resilient business models where carbon credits play a stabilizing – not dominating – role. The combination of tangible agricultural and energy benefits with long-term carbon storage makes biochar uniquely suited to thrive even in fluctuating carbon markets.

So, what is needed to support this notion of a Carbon Economy and to realize its potential globally? Supporting policies can make a big difference.

Connecting the Carbon Economy to National Bioeconomy Strategies

Across the world, bioeconomy strategies have emerged as guiding frameworks for using biological resources and innovation to foster sustainable growth, rural development, and climate mitigation. These frameworks depart from the recognition that available amounts of (waste) biomass are tremendous and often underutilized, while they could be the basis of sustainable economic growth.

The European Union’s Bioeconomy Strategy positions the bioeconomy around circularity, sustainability, and replacing fossil-based resources with renewable biological ones – explicitly linking these goals to food security, resource efficiency, and climate action. Similarly, several Latin American countries have adopted bioeconomy agendas tailored to their ecological and social contexts. Brazil’s National Bioeconomy Strategy (2024) coordinates conservation, innovation, and industrial development around its vast biodiversity and biomass base. Colombia, Chile, and Argentina have followed similar paths, seeking to add value to agricultural and forest value chains while promoting rural inclusion and ecosystem restoration. The Latin American Bioeconomy Network (under the coordination of IICA – the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture), has published a set of guiding principles for the bioeconomy and how to stimulate it.

From this policy perspective, the Carbon Economy and national bioeconomy strategies share the same logic: managing biological carbon circularly, building local value chains, and fostering innovation that decouples growth from emissions. Explicitly integrating biochar and distributed pyrolysis systems into bioeconomy frameworks would strengthen both agendas by advancing circular biomass use, securing long-term carbon storage, and supporting rural livelihoods.

A Plural and Robust Carbon Economy

The Carbon Economy is a comprehensive framework for value creation across agriculture, industry, and energy. It recognizes that carbon – managed wisely – can sustain soils, generate clean energy, and stabilize the climate. Of course, robust sustainability criteria and social safeguards will be essential to ensure that these systems deliver on both climate and development objectives. But the potential of the carbon economy to contribute to sustainable development is huge and within reach.

Biochar, as both a product and a principle, stands at the heart of this transformation. It demonstrates that climate action and agricultural prosperity are not competing goals, but two sides of the same carbon coin.

The post Biochar as a Cornerstone of the Carbon Economy appeared first on CDR30.

This post originally appeared on the European Marine Board’s website.

Author: Ángel Muñiz Piniella, Secretariat at the European Marine Board

Output

The EMB Future Science Brief No. 13 Monitoring, Reporting and Verification for marine Carbon Dioxide Removal will be published on 17 November 2025, on a dedicated webinar. More information available here.

Sign-up here if you wish to be notified once the document is available online.

Background

Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is defined as capturing CO₂ from the atmosphere and storing it long-term, i.e. for decades to millennia. This storage can be on land, in the ocean, in geological formations or in products. It can thus take many forms, from land and ocean management practices such as forest or blue carbon ecosystem management and restoration, to technologies such as direct air capture, where chemical or physical processes are used to extract the CO₂ directly from the air. To date, most CDR developments have been focused on land-based solutions. However, to achieve the required climate targets, novel CDR methods are required, including those linked to the ocean.

Acknowledging the large oceanic carbon storage potential, marine CDR is currently being explored by publicly funded research and private start-ups. However, for marine CDR to be deployed responsibly more research is needed, and high-quality standards in terms of monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) will be required. MRV is also crucial for ensuring that CDR activities generate the promised climate benefits and for the transparent regulation of a growing carbon removal market. Being able to accurately monitor, report, and verify the amount of carbon durably removed over time, and to measure the environmental effects of the marine CDR technology, is essential to evaluate the efficacy and effects of technologies being tested in controlled field trials and to assess if they are viable for future deployment at scale.

This working group provides input to the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030) societal outcome that aims for unlocking ocean-based solutions to climate change.

Working group objectives

The EMB Working Group on marine carbon dioxide removal will focus on monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) of these activities. The Future Science Brief should provide a state-of-the-art overview on the topic and conclude with relevant recommendations for policy and research funding. The document will be primarily written from a European perspective, but due to the global nature of marine CDR, it will have global relevance.

Specific topics that could be addressed in this document include (but are not limited to):

– Explaining the role of the ocean in naturally absorbing and storing atmospheric CO2 and how this will change with different climate change scenarios;

– Outlining the amount of CDR needed to achieve climate objectives, current methods that are used or being developed, and the role that marine CDR can play;

– Providing an overview of the different methodologies for increasing marine CDR (through human intervention), including their potential for success, limitations and risks. This should include the degree of CO2 sequestration from the atmosphere that could be reached by the different methods, timescales to achieve long-term storage, environmental and social concerns and risks, and potential benefits of the different methods;

– Determining principles and research needs for reliable MRV, for deploying marine CDR methods at scale, and explaining the currently available methods, limitations, uncertainties and knowledge gaps for MRV of marine CDR, including the current and future potential to answer questions such as:

– Does the marine CDR activity generate a measurable reduction in the atmospheric CO2 concentration?

– To what extent can net additional ocean uptake of atmospheric CO2 be tracked in response to the marine CDR activity using a combination of sensors, platforms, and models?

– How will the durability (permanence) of stored carbon be monitored?

– What are the impacts on marine ecosystems of marine CDR activities and how do they compare with the impacts of the no-action alternative or of other feasible climate mitigation measures?

– What are the range of impacts to human populations and how do they compare with the impacts of no-action or of other feasible mitigation measures?

The Terms of Reference of the EMB Working Group is available here.

Meetings

29-30 August 2024, kick-off meeting, Ostend, Belgium

11 October 2024, online

22 November 2024, online

14 January 2025, online

5 February 2025, online

11 August 2025, online

Working Group Members

Chair: Helene Muri, NILU & Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Norway

Co-Chair: Olivier Sulpis, CEREGE – Aix-Marseille University, CNRS, IRD, France

– Gabriela Argüello, University of Gothenburg, Sweden

– Chelsey Baker, National Oceanography Centre (NOC), UK

– Miranda Böttcher, Utrecht University & German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), The Netherlands & Germany

– Maribel I. García-Ibáñez, Spanish Institute of Oceanography (IEO-CSIC), Spain

– Karol Kuliński, Institute of Oceanology Polish Academy of Sciences (IO PAN), Poland

– Angela Landolfi, Institute of Marine Sciences (CNR-ISMAR), Italy

– Peter Landschützer, Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ), Belgium

– Evin McGovern, Marine Institute, Ireland

– Živana Ninčević Gladan, Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries (IOF), Croatia

– Andreas Oschlies, GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, Germany

– Elias Yfantis, University of Nicosia, Cyprus

Contact at European Marine Board Secretariat: Ángel Muñiz Piniella Email

Image credit: Michael Sswat, GEOMAR

The post Marine Carbon Dioxide Removal appeared first on CDR30.

This post originally appeared on the Inspiratus Technologies LinkedIn blog.

Author: Wietse Vroom, Chief Technology Officer at Inspiratus Technologies

The world is running out of time to meet the temperature goals of the Paris Agreement. Even with the most ambitious emission reduction efforts, the planet is likely to overshoot the 1.5°C target unless large-scale carbon dioxide removal (CDR) becomes an integral part of global climate strategy. The latest findings from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) make this clear: every credible net-zero pathway requires not only deep emissions cuts but also the active removal of billions of tonnes of CO₂ from the atmosphere by mid-century.

While much of the global discussion around CDR focuses on technological innovation and deployment in industrialized nations, it is increasingly evident that the Global South holds an outsized potential to deliver sustainable, cost-effective, and durable carbon removal. Investment in CDR across developing economies also represents a powerful opportunity for equitable global development — creating jobs, stimulating rural economies, improving soil health, and building new sources of export revenue. To realize this tremendous potential, we need a supporting policy landscape with compliance markets for carbon removal. These will unlock the large scale demand for carbon removal credits needed to bring carbon removal in the Global South to true scale.

Why Carbon Removal Matters for Global Climate Goals

The Paris Agreement’s objective of limiting global warming to well below 2°C, preferably 1.5°C, cannot be achieved through emission reductions alone. Even under aggressive decarbonization scenarios, hard-to-abate sectors such as aviation, agriculture, cement, and steel will continue to emit residual greenhouse gases. To balance these unavoidable emissions, and to clean up excessive historic CO2 emissions, the world must remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it durably in ecosystems or geological formations.

The challenge to scale carbon removal to climate-relevant scale is huge. Current levels of CDR are around 2 GtCO2 per year, mainly from conventional CDR methods such as afforestation/reforestation. Novel CDR methods such as Biochar, Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS), Enhanced Rock Weathering (ERW) and Direct Air Capture (DAC) currently contribute around 1.3 megatonnes of CO2 per year. Scenarios combining projected emission reductions and carbon removal indicate that a carbon removal capacity of 7-9 GtCO2 per year will be requiered by 2025. This means we have an enormous task ahead of us, to bring both nature-based as well as engineerd CDR solutions to the scale that is needed in the coming decades.

We need to acknowledge that the capacity for large-scale carbon removal is not evenly distributed around the world. High land availability, favorable climatic conditions, and lower opportunity costs of land make many regions in the Global South particularly well-suited for both nature-based and technological carbon removal. Afforestation, biochar production, soil carbon enhancement and enhanced rock weathering are all areas where developing countries could become global leaders — provided that sufficient investment, technology transfer, and governance frameworks are in place.

Global South companies already bringing carbon removal to scale

With large players such as Exomad Green, Varaha, Aperam, Carboneers, Planboo, NetZero, Biochar Life, Mash Makes, Husk Ventures and many other newer players such as B10 and Inspiratus Technologies appearing on the horizon, the Global South is already the undisputed leader in biochar based carbon removal. For Enhanced Rock Weathering (ERW), companies such as InPlanet, Terradot and Mati (Grand Prize winner of the XPrize on Carbon Removal) demonstrate the potential in countries like Brasil and India. For Direct Air Capture, companies like Octavia Carbon, Sirona Technologies with projects in Kenya and the Middle East show how it’s done. And the list goes on and on…

The Global South’s Comparative Advantage in Carbon Removal

The Global South encompasses vast landscapes and diverse ecosystems capable of removing and storing carbon at scale. Africa alone possesses nearly 60% of the world’s uncultivated arable land. Latin America hosts some of the world’s richest biodiversity and fertile soils. Southeast Asia combines tropical biomass potential with a growing renewable energy base that could support low-carbon carbon removal technologies. Unsurprisingly, data from CDR.FYI over the past 3 years (2022-24) show that 45% of all carbon removal delivered was from projects located in the Global South. This is a strong indication of the potential of the Global South to be a major contributer to the required carbon removal capacity.

Harnessing this potential is also an opportunity for sustainable economic development. Most CDR technologies have significant co-benefits such as improved agricultural productivity, creation of local jobs, reducing environmental pollution and building local industries. co-benefits contribute to achieving the UN Global Development Goals, something that is especially relevant in the Global South. The CDR sector can become a cornerstone of green industrialization across developing economies. As a 2024 BCG report put it: carbon removal can become a global 470-940 billion euro industry by 2050.

Financing Carbon Removal: A Path to Climate and Economic Justice

While each country bears the responsibility to reduce its own emissions as much as possible, the capacity for carbon removal varies widely. Some nations — particularly small, densely populated or heavily industrialized ones — have limited land or ecological capacity for significant removals. Others, often in the Global South, have the potential to remove far more carbon than their domestic or historic emissions require.

This mismatch underscores the need for international carbon removal trading mechanisms. Rather than each country trying to balance its emissions solely within its borders, global carbon markets allow nations with excess carbon removal capacity to sell high-quality, verifiable carbon removal credits to others. Luckily, such mechanisms are already being developed and increasingly implemented under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement.

Article 6 of the Paris Agreement establishes the legal framework that allows countries to cooperate in achieving their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) through internationally transferred mitigation outcomes (ITMOs) and other cooperative approaches.

While early Article 6 activities have focused largely on emission reduction projects, there is a growing recognition that carbon dioxide removal activities — both nature-based and technological — can also qualify as eligible mitigation outcomes. And yes, certain guardrails need to be in place to ensure the quality, integrity and durability of the carbon credits exchanged under Article 6. Projects should meet the criteria of additionality, permanence, and robust monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV). However, if done right, carbon removal projects around the globe can build the climate-relevant scale that is needed while avoiding some of the pitfalls that have plagued carbon credit markets in the past.

Recent developments in the negotiations around European 2040 climate targets highlight how Article 6 credits could become part of a compliance market. On July 2nd this year, the European Comission launched a proposal to adopt a target of 90% emission reductions by 2040, including a mechanism that would allow up to 3% of the target to be achieved through international carbon credits. The use of international carbon credits to achieve European climate targets is presented as a ‘flexibility’; a way of making it easier for certain European countries to achieve the 2040 target. Predictably, the proposal is criticized for lowering climate ambition. Nevertheless, opening up European climate policy to the use of Article 6 credits, and carbon removal credits in particular could send an important message to the industry about the future role of carbon removal in compliance markets. This is just the kind of demand signal that is needed for investment to flow into the carbon removal sector and give buyers of high-quality durable carbon credits the confidence that they are making a secure investment.

In conclusion: From Climate Obligation to Development Opportunity

Investing in carbon removal in the Global South is a pragmatic and morally sound strategy for achieving global climate stability. The climate crisis demands collective action that transcends borders and rethinks fairness. Carbon removal is indispensable for meeting the Paris Agreement goals, but its potential can only be fully realized through global cooperation that recognizes the asymmetry between countries’ capacities and needs.

By investing in carbon removal in the Global South, the world can simultaneously accelerate climate action and unlock pathways to sustainable development. This is not just an efficient solution — it is the right thing to do.

The post Global South Leadership in Carbon Removal appeared first on CDR30.