Carbon Weekly News

Net zero targets, as most companies have set them, will not be met. Robert Höglund argues that is not a reason to give up on them, but to rethink what they are for.

Robert is CEO of Marginal Carbon and co-founder of CDR.fyi. Adrian Wons and Dan Harburg sat down with him at New York Climate Week.

His case: a net zero target is less a target than a vision, with one part a company actually controls. Carbon removal is mitigation, not a magic fix for some special category of "residual" emissions, because there is no such category. What is left over is simply whatever we decide to use carbon removal for. And unless removals can count toward near-term targets, there is little reason for companies to buy them at all.

In this conversation: why so many companies feel paralysed by their own net zero targets, operational net zero with carbon removal and sustainable aviation fuel, how the EU ETS proposal treats removals, where tree planting fits, why he wants methane kept out of CO2-equivalent maths, and why ReFuelEU could leave carbon removal with no demand from aviation, its best use case.

Also: what isn't working (macroalgae sinking, and his doubts about basalt rock weathering), why biochar is the one pathway delivering at scale, and the thesis he would bet on.

Carbon prices this week: Mangroves $33.87 (−6.38%), ARR $21.27 (flat), IFM $20.06 (+3.35%), REDD $8.38 (+1.95%), CORC €150.40, DAC $482 (−10.74%), BECCS $235 (+30.56%), ERW $210.

Google has bought the first megaton-scale enhanced rock weathering deal, from Terradot. It is their third deal together, after a Frontier purchase in 2024 and what was then the largest bilateral ERW deal.

What makes this one different is that it stacks two pathways. Terradot spreads rock, which takes years to weather, and pairs it with cutting methane from rice in the same fields. The methane covers the gap while the rock does its work, so the project is, in Connor's phrase, net zero warming from the first credit rather than from 2040.

Adrian Wons and Dan Harburg sat down with Connor Sendel, Chief Commercial Officer and part of the founding team at Terradot, at New York Climate Week.

In this conversation: why the deal came together collaboratively rather than through an RFP, how both pathways are measured directly (gas flux for the rice methane, soil sampling for the rock), why ERW pricing looks like a black box to buyers, and the difference between hard costs and the soft costs of project finance and repeated MRV that add no climate impact at all.

Also: why European buyers pay less for the story than American ones, and what compliance markets targeting 250 megatonnes by 2040 mean for a sector delivering its first megaton now.

CWN now has its own YouTube channel. Subscribe for future Carbon Weekly News episodes and interviews: https://www.youtube.com/@CWNshow

Episodes 1–5 remain here on Senken. Google has signed its biggest rice methane deal, around a million credits through 2030, with Mitti Labs. Rice produces more than 12% of global methane emissions and uses over 30% of irrigated water, and most of it is grown by about 150 million smallholder farmers on plots of around a hectare.

Adrian Wons and Dan Harburg are joined by four guests this episode.

Xavi Laguarta, Co-Founder of Mitti Labs, on how alternate wetting and drying cuts methane by more than half, why falling water tables are what actually convince farmers, and why satellite radar, not sensors, is the only way to measure rice methane at scale.

Michael Bertelsen, Head of Carbon Markets at Agreena, on the company's 4.45 million tonne soil carbon deal in northern Kazakhstan: around 1.6 million hectares by 2028 under Verra's VM42, and what it takes to convince buyers that regenerative agriculture delivers.

Antti Vihavainen (Co-Founder and Vice Chairman, Puro.earth) and Chris Neidl (Carbon Removal Lead, Climate High-Level Champions) on Think Negative and carbon removal at COP31: the first ITMO transaction for geologically stored carbon, why climate accounting was never built for removals, and why countries can use any credit when companies can't.

Also on the desk: Sylvera gives Deep Sky One an AAA-A in its first pre-issuance DAC rating, and buyers have already committed 81% of this year's high-quality biochar supply.

Carbon prices this week: Mangroves $31.07 (flat), ARR $22.27 (+4.85%), IFM $19.11 (+4.20%), REDD $8.54 (flat), CORC EUR150.40 (+8.71%), DAC $540, BECCS $180, ERW $210.

## Links

- Agreena's record Kazakhstan soil carbon deal — https://carboncredits.com/agreena-record-soil-carbon-deal-kazakhstan/
- Google and Mitti Labs, 1M credits from rice methane — https://www.esgdive.com/news/google-deal-to-generate-1m-carbon-credits-from-cutting-methane-emissions/830305/
- Sylvera's first pre-issuance DAC rating, Deep Sky One — https://carbonherald.com/deep-sky-one-labeled-aaa-a-in-sylveras-first-ever-pre-issuance-dac-rating/
- Biochar supply committed early in 2026 — https://carbon-pulse.com/548363/
- Think Negative — https://think-negative.org

## Tags

carbon markets, carbon removal, CDR, rice methane, alternate wetting and drying, Mitti Labs, Google, superpollutants, soil carbon, regenerative agriculture, Agreena, Kazakhstan, Verra VM42, Isometric, Gold Standard, Puro.earth, COP31, Think Negative, Climate High-Level Champions, Article 6, ITMO, direct air capture, Deep Sky, Sylvera, carbon ratings, biochar, Supercritical, voluntary carbon market, Senken, Mombak

CWN now has its own YouTube channel. Subscribe for future Carbon Weekly News episodes and interviews: https://www.youtube.com/@CWNshow

Episodes 1–5 remain here on Senken. Senken and Carbonsate have signed Europe's largest biomass storage offtake to date — 50,000 tonnes of permanent CO2 removal from a Puro.earth-certified biomass burial project in Namibia, roughly 4% of everything the permanent removal sector has delivered so far.

Adrian Wons and Dan Harburg are joined by Carbonsate founder Fabian Sperling to work through what biomass storage actually is, how it differs from biochar, and the question every durable removal method has to answer: how do you prove a tonne stays buried for a hundred years?

Then: BeZero publishes ex ante ratings on 14 Microsoft-backed removal projects and the pair ask whether a developer should have to pay to be rated. A German government probe finds forged documents, fake audits and alleged bribery behind Chinese projects feeding an EU fuel compliance scheme — and prompts the sharper question of whether compliance markets are really cleaner than voluntary ones. Google opens its 2026 Carbon Removal and Superpollutant R&D Awards.

Carbon prices this week: Mangroves $31.07 (-6.89%), ARR $21.24 (-9.77%), IFM $18.34 (-4.03%), REDD $8.54 (-6.46%), CORC EUR138.35, DAC $540, BECCS $180, ERW $210.

## Chapters

0:00 Cold open
0:28 Titles
0:56 What's on this episode
3:00 Senken and Carbonsate: Europe's largest biomass storage deal
4:45 Biomass storage vs biochar: what's the difference?
7:44 Meet Fabian Sperling, founder of Carbonsate
7:57 From a research paper to a project in Namibia
10:07 Is encroaching bush really a waste feedstock?
12:50 Why not just make biochar with it?
14:53 Is buried biomass easier to measure than biochar?
16:23 Reforestation in reverse: cutting trees so grass can grow
17:13 How do you prove permanence for a hundred years?
20:28 Does a storage site take land out of use?
22:02 Where is Carbonsate in three years?
23:39 BeZero rates 14 Microsoft-backed removal projects
25:21 Should a project developer pay to be rated?
27:29 When does a rating actually change a deal?
33:05 Forged documents and fake audits: the German probe
37:02 Is compliance really cleaner than the voluntary market?
40:30 Google opens its 2026 carbon removal R&D awards
46:03 Superpollutants: hype word or real market?

## Links
- Senken and Carbonsate deal — https://carbonherald.com/senken-and-carbonsate-ink-europes-largest-biomass-storage-deal-to-date/
- BeZero ratings on Microsoft projects — https://esgnews.com/bezero-publishes-microsoft-carbon-removal-risk-ratings/
- German shadow-structure probe — https://carbon-pulse.com/543804/
- Google 2026 Climate R&D Awards — https://esgnews.com/google-opens-2026-climate-rd-awards-for-carbon-removal/

Carbon Weekly News EP3 covers the carbon market week of 2026-W33: Microsoft's wastewater-based carbon removal off-take with CREW Carbon, PayPal's first biochar purchase via 3Degrees, ICVCM
clearing three more registries (BioCarbon, SerCarbono and Plan Vivo), the EU ETS revision that brings DAC and BECCS into the system from 2031 while leaving enhanced rock weathering out, and the debut of Dan Harburg, Chief Commercial Officer of Mombak, as CWN's new co-host.

I'm Adrian, founder of Senken. We help corporates build carbon portfolios that survive an audit,which means I spend most of my week reading research, screening projects, and turning down about
95% of what comes across our desk. From this episode I'm joined by a project developer, because the perspective most buyers never get is what a carbon project actually looks like on the ground.

The episode opens with Dan's route into carbon: a first paid job in the opera at 13, a PhD in energy efficiency that finished just as the clean tech wave collapsed, robotics, and then Indigo Agriculture, where he launched Indigo Carbon in 2018 and his team wrote Verra's VM42 and the Climate Action Reserve soil enrichment protocol. He joined Mombak five years ago when the company was two weeks old and is now its Chief Commercial Officer. Dan explains why Brazil has structural
advantages in reforestation, how Mombak secured the first World Bank outcome bond focused on a carbon project, and why the company added enhanced rock weathering as a second pathway. We get
into why European buyers are more risk-averse than US buyers on new methodologies, what happened when Mombak took 20,000 credits to the spot market for the first time, and why most spot buyers
move to multi-year contracts once someone explains the market to them.

In the news segment: Microsoft signs an offtake with CREW Carbon for wastewater-based carbon removal, and Dan explains why existing wastewater infrastructure makes MRV cheap and the pathway unusually scalable. We look at Frontier's $32.1M deal, the first credits issued through Isometric in May 2025, and Frontier's own price forecasts of $70-200 for ocean alkalinity against $75-200 for enhanced rock weathering. PayPal makes its first biochar purchase through 3Degrees. ICVCM clears BioCarbon, SerCarbono and Plan Vivo, and we discuss why RFPs increasingly just say "CCP-approved" — plus why Mombak moved its projects from Verra to Isometric, and why two ARR credits can differ in price by 3x. Finally, the EU ETS revision: DAC and BECCS in from 2031, biochar conditional, enhanced rock weathering excluded on MRV readiness grounds, and whether that will hold.
credibility, not sales skills

Senken is a carbon credit procurement platform. We source, screen, and structure carbon portfolios for corporates targeting net zero.

https://senken.io
Newsletter: https://www.senken.io/carbon-outlook
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrianwons/

#CarbonWeeklyNews #CarbonMarkets #CDR #CarbonRemoval #Mombak #EnhancedRockWeathering #ICVCM #EUETS #Biochar #VoluntaryCarbonMarket

In this episode of Carbon Weekly News, host Adrian Wons covers the week's biggest moves in carbon markets before sitting

down with two guests at the centre of European CDR infrastructure and policy.

Peter Mayer, Partner at Stairs Dillenbeck Finley Mayer and OSCAR co-creator, breaks down what CDR contracting looks like

in 2026: deal velocity, risk allocation, and how the Open Standard Carbon Removal Agreement holds up under the new EU

regime. Then Chris Sherwood, Secretary-General of the Negative Emissions Platform, joins from Brussels to debrief on CRCF

Days: the Brussels view, the demand wall to 2028, and what the compliance bridge actually means for buyers.

Topics covered:

- CRCF now in force: what it means for project developers and corporate buyers

- Stockholm Exergi completes the first major city-level CDR transaction

- Microsoft pauses CDR purchasing: what we know and what it signals

- CDR contracting in 2026: deal velocity, risk allocation, and claims under the new EU regime

- EU CRCF Days readout: the Brussels view, the demand wall to 2028, and the compliance bridge

The first episode of Carbon Weekly News. Adrian Wons unpacks the week in the voluntary carbon market with two guests: Dr. Allister Furey, Co-Founder and CEO of Sylvera, and Dan Maleski, who leads hedging and risk at Redshaw Advisors.

In this episode:

- ICVCM updates. Global Carbon Council becomes the first Asian program approved. ART TREES needs remedial action. VMR17 conditional. Isometric's mangrove restoration methodology now has three projects registered.

- MSCI's new offtake data. $22B in future carbon market demand, a 72% increase on 2024 and five times the 2020 number.

- Sol Blangel on why building CRCF without demand drivers is not a removals policy.

- The Senken DAX40 report. Only a small share of DAX40 companies disclose their carbon credit purchases in their CSRD filings. More than half haven't participated at all.

- Allister Furey on the 330% price premium between an A-grade and a D-grade nature-based credit.

- Dan Maleski on last week's CBAM implementation act. Third-country ETS regimes that allow carbon credits can now count as a cost of carbon paid, opening up indirect demand for the VCM.

Three things to do this week:

1. Download the DAX40 report at senken.io/reports.

2. Read Sol Blangel's article on the EU's missing CRCF demand driver.

3. If you import into the EU, check whether the carbon cost in your supplier's country qualifies under CBAM's mandatory regime rules.

New episode every Tuesday. Watch the video version on YouTube: https://youtu.be/NY1cxPBm-HA

Replays at cwn.show.

Guests:

Dr. Allister Furey, Co-Founder & CEO of Sylvera: https://www.linkedin.com/in/afurey/

Dan Maleski, Redshaw Advisors: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-maleski/