Climate Workers Anonymous

Earlier this week the IPCC released its report on climate mitigation. It recommended enormous funding levels to deploy renewable energy to reduce carbon emissions from power generation while suggesting more funding still to research and invent the technologies needed to decarbonize other emitting sectors.

Under any future scenario, carbon removal is necessary to limit warming. Any pathway that leads to 1.5 degrees of warming, and nearly all that lead to 2 degrees of warming, include large-scale use of forestry, BECCS, and DAC.

The report finds that a wide range of stakeholders will need to move fast to deploy high levels of many different types of negative emissions approaches.

Joining Radhika on this episode to discuss this 3000-page report is Simon Nicholson, the Co-Director of the American University Institute for Carbon Removal Law and Policy.

Simon and Radhika take a look at the recommendations mean, how the report finds CDR scale-up might be achieved, and what are some of the implications for businesses, governments, and civil society?

Back in January of 2021, Elon Musk tweeted that he'd be "donating $100 million towards a prize for best carbon capture technology." If you're following carbon removal, you probably know he has partnered with the XPrizeorganization to launch a multi-stage, multi-year prize program attracting not only attention but applications from a considerable range of serious science and business minds.

Ocean Visions is a non-profit that supports ocean CDR's research and deployment. Now, it is seeking to help some of the most promising ideas in that space get the attention and support that comes with such a visible prize.

Ocean Visions has selected six teams that will receive support to apply for the prize in the form of technical expertise and physical resources like labs and vessels to develop their technique.

On this episode Radhika and Susan are joined by a panel of representatives from the Launchpad: program manager Nikhil Neelakantan and representatives from two of the teams: Dr. Franziska Elmer the Scientific Lead of Seafields, which is building offshore seaweed aquafarms, and Ben Tarbell the CEO of Ebb Carbon which is developing an electrochemical method for CO2 removal from seawater.

They discuss their methods for removing CO2, why they are applying for the prize, and what they’d hope to accomplish with the proceeds. Susan shares her thoughts on prize programs, and how she thinks they can have the most impact.

Plus- Susan is hosting an event! “How Startups Can Engage with Climate Policy” with Anne Hoskins, Chief Policy Officer at SunRun & Peter Minor, Director of Innovation at Carbon180 — 4pm Apr 8.

Sign-up link below-

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeEpNQ8lWvBz9tp70gR5_SOV9IMZB7IRAInjdcq8uBLB4UR7A/viewform

In this Bonus episode of Carbon Removal Newsroom, Radhika is joined by Susan Su and Chris Barnard, plus special guest Erin Burns, Executive Director of Carbon180, for a wide-ranging discussion about carbon removal in 2022. The group touched on some of the most pressing news announced this year: Microsoft’s 2022 purchases, Oxy Petroleum’s big foray into DAC, Carbon180’s Soil Carbon Moonshot proposal, and much more in front of a live Zoom audience. 

Did you miss the live recording? Catch up with the conversation here and follow us on social media for to get alerted next time we host a live show. 

In this week’s policy-focused episode of CRN, Radhika, and Chris are joined by one of the foremost authorities on the laws and policies which govern carbon removal: Wil Burns, Visiting Professor, Environmental Policy & Culture Program, Northwestern University & Emeritus Co-Executive Director of the Institute for Carbon Removal Law and Policy at American University.

Wil joins our hosts to discuss recent developments around ocean based CDR.

In December of 2021, the National Academy of Science, Engineering, and Medicine released its much-anticipated report, which outlined a research agenda for ocean-based carbon removal. Ocean-based approaches have the theoretical potential to remove significant amounts of co2 from the atmosphere, and thus help fight climate change.

The authors outlined six carbon removal categories they found worthy of further research: Ocean Nutrient Fertilization, Artificial Upwelling, Seaweed Cultivation, Ecosystem Recovery, Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement, and Electrochemical Processes. Each was assessed by the researchers on several criteria, such as the existing knowledge base, efficacy, and governance and public acceptance considerations. Overall, NASEM found ocean CDR at the gigaton scale is possible and recommended a federal research budget of $850 million over the next five years.

Wil also provides a CDR update from the world of international diplomacy. The London Convention is a global treaty governing the disposal of wastes into the ocean. The 87 nations which have signed on to the agreement share a standard set of rules that limit the dumping of pollution into the ocean from seaward vessels (it does not cover pollution originating on land). Recently, the London Convention has convened a new working group to assess ocean-based carbon removal.

Do short-term carbon offsets have value? How should their value be calculated for buyers?

Last month, the research non-profit CarbonPlan released an analysis of ton-year accounting of carbon offsets. The report examined how ton year accounting works, its limitations, and how it might be improved.

The CarbonPlan authors also released a critique of the method used by NCX, an offset seller. NCX issued a response post, and the back-and-forth was a visible surfacing of some of the main issues within offset markets.

On March 2nd, NCX announced a $50 million fundraising round from investors including JP Morgan and Marc Benioff, indicating that the uncertainty about offset calculations isn’t dampening the enthusiastic corporate interest in voluntary markets.

As net-zero plans have proliferated in the last year, the demand for voluntary offsets has grown, as has predicted future demand. However, while corporations and governments pledge to remove CO2 to fulfill their climate commitments, climate economists continue to debate some of the most fundamental elements of measuring offset emissions.

Earlier this week, Bodie Cabiyo joined his Carbon Direct colleague Alex Dolginow in penning a thorough blog post titled “Accounting for Short-Term Durability in Carbon Offsetting”.

In this episode Bodie and his Carbon Direct colleague John Dees joined host Radhika Moolgavkar to discuss ton-year accounting, the challenges of measuring short-term durability in offsets, and the current research into alternatives.

Last week, Mark Zuckerberg and Pricilla Chan announced their second large set of charitable gifts into the carbon removal field in the last six months. Specifically, the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative announced $44 million in grants towards CDR. Combined with the $23 million they gave in October of 2021, the couple has given $67 million to support carbon removal in the last five months.

They join other billionaires like Jeremy Grantham and Elon Musk, whose giving has shown they also see CDR as an important part of the climate fight.

While a few foundations, such as CZI, have the resources to look deeply at supporting the carbon removal industry, many corporations rely on net-zero plans that lack full detail about carbon accounting and emissions reductions plans. A report released earlier this month by the New Climate Institute and Carbon Market Watch found that the net-zero plans of 25 of the world’s most valuable companies are not specific and don’t explain how they’ll reduce emissions by 2050.

A new coalition announced last week aims to fill this alleged gap in credibility between corporate plans and real action. Microsoft and the Climateworks Foundation announced “Carbon Call,” a partnership between 20 corporates, non-profits, and research organizations. In a statement to Axios, the group is building what they call “a carbon ledger…a global dashboard that tells you what exactly is happening in terms of emissions,” in a statement . Signatories include Deloitte, GlaxoSmithKline, and the UN Environment Program.

The coalition will use their pooled resources and expertise to improve the carbon accounting methodologies used in corporate emissions reporting. Ultimately, they hope this will allow corporate and national emission data to be accurate and directly comparable.

In this week’s business episode, hosts Radhika Moolgavkar, Susan Su, and Na’im Merchant discuss the CZI gifts, how Carbon Call aims to improve corporate emissions accounting, and the short supply of quality carbon removal available to meet the skyrocketing demand.

In January of 2022, New York Assemblymember Patricia Fahy and State Senator Michelle Hinchey introduced the Carbon Dioxide Removal Leadership Act. The proposed legislation aims to use public procurement of carbon removal to help meet the state’s emissions reductions goals by purchasing enough removals to cover the state’s “hard-to-abate” sector’s by 2050- 15% of the state’s 1990 emissions.

Under this law, the state will use reverse auctions to purchase measurable and verifiable removals. The legislation also mandates that community benefits and job creation factor into the auction.

CDRLA was developed by a grassroots, online, volunteer climate advocacy community called the OpenAir Collective. Last year, OpenAir advocates successfully wrote and championed a bill in New York State that aims to decarbonize the concrete sector there. Members of the group are also working on other projects, such as building several open-source direct air capture prototypes.

In this episode Radhika and Chris are joined by OpenAir’s Toby Bryce who describes how the legislation was created through their organization’s open-source approach and how the law will work if it becomes law. Chris dives into how this kind of legislation could work from a convservative point of view, and how reverse auctions can be an effective way for public procurement to support competitive markets.

For more info on CDRLA and OpenAir visit…

• Bill No. A8597 / Senate Bill S8171


• CDRLA FAQ


• Legislative brief


• Support memo


• Join OpenAir


• Follow OpenAir on Twitter


• OpenAir's This Is CDR webinar series

Toby on Twitter

Chris on Twitter

In this week’s episode of Carbon Removal Newsroom, hosts Radhika Moolgavkar and Dr. Jane Zelikova are joined by Heirloom’s Head of Research and Process Engineering, Noah Mcqueen. Heirloom is a Direct Air Capture company that launched in April 2021.

Noah and our hosts discuss the science of Heirloom’s approach, the techno-economic challenges to scaling DAC, and the kind of continuous research and materials development necessary to grow the industry.

In 2021, Noah and several co-authors published a review of existing DAC technologies in the journal Process in Energy. The paper provided a techno-economic assessment of the two most researched and developed DAC methods- liquid solvent and solid sorbent. The researchers used their findings to examine what will be needed to scale up these technologies quickly. They also made recommendations for how research can be directed to support the widespread deployment of DAC.

Heirloom received investment from Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Lowercarbon Capital and sold carbon removal credits to Shopify and Stripe. The technique they are pursuing has not been commercialized before and was co-invented by some of the leading experts in the industry, including Dr. Peter Keleman, Dr. Jennifer Wilcox, Dr. Greg Dipple, and Noah.

Panelists Susan Su of TOBA Capital and Na’im Merchant, author of the Carbon Curve, join host Radhika Moolgavkar of Nori for this business-focused episode of Carbon Removal Newsroom.

Na’im recently published a piece titled “8 Unique Direct Air Capture Companies to Watch in 2022” where he wrote, “2030 is a critical decade for DAC in which companies, researchers, and policymakers working on DAC to figure out how to do three things— 1. improve DAC’s performance, 2. bring down costs, and 3. responsibly deploy the technology.”

Three well-known ‘incumbents’ have been working on DAC since 2009, and they all had big developments in 2021: Climeworks, Carbon Engineering, and Global Thermostat. However, the scale of the problem will require many more companies to capture billions of tons of CO2 annually, globally.

There are many new entrants into the DAC space, but there is limited public information on many of them. Most of these startups are attempting novel technological approaches distinct from existing deployments.

Na’im, Susan, and Radhika discuss what sets this crop of DAC companies apart from those that came before, which ones they are excited about, and how they would be planning their approach to market if they were on the inside of one of these startups.

In our second segment, we dive into Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s inaugural Long-Term Carbon Offset Outlook 2022, released earlier this month. The report models several supply and demand scenarios for offset prices.

Main author Kyle Harrison says, “No matter the scenario, corporations and other entities looking to buy carbon offsets shouldn’t expect them to be a get-out-of-jail-free card for much longer.”

While the conversation begins as a breakdown of the BNEF report, it zooms out into a wider trading of philosophies about how the carbon offset market should be regulated. Na’im and Susan elucidate some of the most contentious issues surrounding carbon offsets.

We end the show with some good news— fewer oil derricks in Los Angeles and a lot more cultured meat in China.

Panelists Dr. Holly Jean Buck of the University at Buffalo and Chris Barnard of the American Conservation Coalition join host Radhika Moolgavkar of Nori for this policy-focused episode of Carbon Removal Newsroom.

In April of 2021, Raj Kumar Singh, an Indian energy Minister, said at a UN conference that rich countries need to be net-negative and remove atmospheric co2 to account for historical emissions. While decades of climate diplomacy focused on emissions to come, Singh worked to shift the conversation towards pollution already emitted.

Later last year, journalist and author of popular climate book The Uninhabitable Earth David Wallace-Wells penned Climate Reparations in New York Magazine.

The long-form piece connected the inequitable effects of climate change, more drastically and quickly hitting tropical and global south countries, with the political outcomes made possible by carbon removal technology.

He points out that half of emissions come from 10% of the world’s population and that climate change has already decreased the GDP of some global south countries, while it has increased GDPs in the global North. This dynamic will continue and will widen already stark global wealth inequalities.

Wells reviews the field of technical CDR and finds that while it could present temptation for delay, it also provides revolutionary possibilities if historical emitters are made to pay to remove their pollution.

He calls this ‘climate reparations’ and quotes philosopher Olufemi Taiwo (who coined that term) “It’s just so clear to me that carbon removal is squarely the kind of thing that fits into the reparations framework.”

In this episode, we discuss the Wallace-Wells' piece and zoom in on climate reparations and climate colonialism, defining these phrases in more depth and explaining how these approaches might impact policies and institutions.

We also discuss the idea that carbon removal is not limited by physics, so what is carbon removal scaling limited by?

We round out the episode with the good news and the interesting news of the week, then we bid a warm farewell to our beloved co-host Holly, who will be going on sabbatical for the year. We will miss you Holly and look forward to seeing you back on the show!