April 16, 2025 • 39 mins
Reducing greenhouse-gas emissions remains the top priority in addressing climate change. However, it’s increasingly clear that these efforts must be complemented by greenhouse-gas removal. The extent needed is difficult to pin down, but a recent report, Scaling Technological Greenhouse Gas Removal: A Global Roadmap to 2050, by the Bezos Earth Fund and the Rocky Mountain Institute is anchored around the idea that we need to achieve 10 gigatons in annual technological extraction by 2050. Noel Bakhtian, director of Technology Acceleration and lead of the GHG Removal Initiative at the Bezos Earth Fund, and Rudy Kahsar, principal for Climate-Aligned Industries at the Rocky Mountain Institute, join BI director of ESG research Eric Kane on this episode of ESG Currents. They discuss the road map and many of the steps needed to achieve this massive increase in scale from less than 1 megaton of removals currently. The episode was recorded on March 25.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
ESG has become established as a key business theme as
companies and investors seek to navigate the climate crisis, energy transition,
social mega trends, mounting regulatory tension, and pressure from other stakeholders.
The rapidly evolving landscape has become inundated with acronyms, buzzwords
and lingo, and we aim to break these down with
(00:31):
industry experts. Welcome to ESG Currents, your guide to navigating
the evolving ESG space, one topic at a time, Brought
to you by Bloomberg Intelligence, part of Bloomberg's Research department
with five hundred analysts and strategists working across all major
world markets. I'm Eric Cain, director of ESG Research for
(00:53):
Bloomberg Intelligence, and today we're talking about greenhouse gas removal.
Although reducing greenhouse gas emissions remains the top priority in
addressing climate change, it's increasingly clear that these efforts must
be complemented by greenhouse gas removal in order to achieve
long term climate goals. The extent of removals needed is
(01:16):
difficult to pin down, but a recent report by the
Bezos Earth Fund and the Rocky Mountain Institute is anchored
around the idea that we need to achieve ten gigatons
in annual technological removals by twenty fifty. The report, which
is called Scaling Technological Greenhouse Gas REMOVALAD a Global Roadmap
(01:38):
to twenty fifty, does what the title suggests and provides
a roadmap by stakeholder group and by initiative of the
steps needed to achieve this massive increase in scale from
less than one megaton currently. Today, I'm joined by two
authors of this report, Noel Bactian, who is the director
of Technology Acceleration and GHD Removal in Lead at the
(02:01):
Bezos Earth Fund, and Rudy Kesar, who is a Principle
for Climate Aligned Industries at the Rocky Mountain Institute. Noel
and Rudy, thank you so much for taking the time
to join the program.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Yeah, thanks Eric, and thanks for the invite.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Huge thanks to Bloomberg and do you Eric for having
us in shining a light on this work. I'm really
excited to.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Be here, wonderful. So with that, maybe we can get started. So,
as I mentioned in the intro, you recently published a
report called Scaling Technological Greenhouse Gas Removal a Global Roadmap
to twenty fifty. Before we get into the details. I
think there's a key distinction that you make in this
report between technological greenhouse gas removal and nature based greenhouse
(02:43):
gas removal. I'm wondering, Rudy, if maybe you could walk
us through the difference and the decision to focus this
roadmap on the former.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (02:52):
Thanks, Eric, I think this is a good place to start.
I think a lot of your listeners will be familiar
with nature based removals, but perhaps less familiar with technological GHDR.
And as you say, it's an important distinction that we
made in producing this roadmap. So nature based removals these are,
you know, we think of these as sort of living
(03:12):
biomass type removals, and this can include things like forestation,
a forestation, reforestation, soil carbon management, the sort of activities
that are meant to maintain ecosystems and remove carbon through
living biomass. For the most part, the other category and
the one that we really focused on with this roadmap,
(03:34):
technological GHGR are all of these other new, really newer
approaches that tend to have higher durabilities, greater potential to scale.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Some of the approaches.
Speaker 4 (03:46):
That might be familiar to some of your listeners are
things like direct air capture sometimes called DAK, or bio
energy with carbon capture sometimes called BEX. So some of
these terms might be familiar, but you know, there's actually
a whole hot mo of them across a variety of categories,
and we'll tell you more about those in a little bit.
But I think it's a really interesting space because the
(04:07):
technological GHGR side of the removals space is actually quite
large and growing quickly.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Absolutely, this is just a really important distinction, and when
we thought really carefully about at the Earth Fund when
we were launching the greenhouse gas removal initiative and then
starting to plan out the roadmap, nature based removals are
essential and are already doing a lot of the heavy
lifting here at the Basos Earth Fund. We already have
major commitments and grants in place supporting the nature piece,
including a one billion dollar commitment to restoration which we're
(04:38):
currently working on in Africa, the US, and Brazil. But
we also recognize that given the scale of removals needed,
it's unlikely that pure nature based solutions can get us
all the way there, given land constraints and possible removal reversals.
For example, wildfires that release a forest stored carbon back
into the atmosphere. However, by harnessing technological solutions to pull
(05:01):
greenhouse gases out of the environment, there's an opportunity there
to really achieve the necessary removals we need. And this
was born the greenhouse Gas Removal Initiative at the Earth
fun focused on technological removals to complement our nature based work.
I'm just really excited about the space because it's not
really an either or We absolutely meet both. Nature is vital,
(05:21):
but to meet the scale of what's needed, we need
to build a complementary technological removal industry that can grow
reliably and durably alongside the nature based solution.
Speaker 4 (05:29):
Yeah, if I could just add one thing to that, Eric,
you know, I think one of the key things that
motivated our roadmap, and I think we'll talk about this
and you know a little bit later in the conversation,
but just this idea that you know, ten gigatons a
year is is hot a big target for what we're
trying to hit, but that it's a really difficult target
(05:51):
for nature based removals, a load to hit. There's been
a number of papers that have come out recently that
have really questioned the ability of nature based removals to
hit the kinds of removals that we need to hit
our climate goals. And you know, one of the goals
of this roadmap and why it really took a focus
on technological GHDR, was to say, hey, we're not sure
(06:13):
that the nature based removals are going to get us there,
and so we want to make sure that you know,
if we needed technological GHDR, this is how we would
be able to supply it.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
Another way to think about it is how do we
take the natural systems that are already working across planet
Earth and enhance them through the power of science and
engineering and human ingenuity so that they can do even more.
Ocean and lands already remove twenty three gigatons equivalent of
CO two per year, and to put that in perspective,
humans admit about fifty seven gigatons equivalent per year by
burning fossil fuels. So how can we leverage those planetary
(06:44):
scale existing processes to really tilt the balance of natural
removals even more?
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Very interesting and certainly the idea of it not being
in case of either or I think as important. Obviously,
like I said in the introduction, you know the first
a day, of course, is reducing greenhouse gas emissions. All
these things that you know ultimately need to work in concert.
It's not just about one of these solutions. So another
key distinction that you make in the report is you're
(07:13):
talking about greenhouse gas removal. I think many of us
are accustomed to hearing about carbon removal. Can you tell
us about this distinction? Noel, maybe you'll start.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Yeah, that's a great question, and it gets it's something
really foundational. Carbon removals or carbon dioxide removals typically shortened
to CDR is really picking up speed as an industry term,
which is great. We intentionally use the term greenhouse gas
removal and the roadmap because carbon dioxide is not the
only gas that we might be able to use as
a lever here. It's the most well known for sure,
(07:45):
But methane and nitrous oxide, for instance, are also incredibly
potent greenhouse gases. Methane, for instance, has about eighty times
the worming power of CO two over a twenty year period,
and nitrous oxide is two hundred and seventy three times
more powerful as a worm agent over one hundred year
time scale. But methane and nitros oxide removal approaches are
still very much in their infancy and need to be
(08:07):
really deeply explored so we can understand if they can
adequately scale to make an impact, and if and how
we should prioritize them. So in the roadmap, we really
make the case that we need to think more broadly
at the start, especially as we look at this at
a systems level. So ultimately we made this distinction to
highlight that the path to twenty fifty sure is heck
better take into consideration all the removals at the start,
(08:29):
especially since we need to figure some of that out
from first principles right now in order to be able
to scale by twenty fifty.
Speaker 4 (08:36):
Yeah, and I just want to add, you know, for
anyone who's listening that wants to follow along. In the report,
we actually wrote out quite a bit of this justification.
We have a section four of the report that talks
about the scope, and I just try to underline what
Noel just said. Right, One of the big conclusions of
this report was to say, you know, we're working on
technological carbon removal now, but there's potentially ways of removing
(09:00):
these other gases, but there's such early stage TRL that
really the conclusion of the report was to say, and
we really need a lot more basic science at this
point to understand if we want to do them, if
it's possible to do them, what it would look like
to actually deploy, you know, approaches for removing those gases.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
So I think we talked about some of the vocabulary
that you introduced right at the beginning of the report. Again,
the distinction of course, you know, between greenhouse gas removal,
carbon removal, and also technological greenhouse gas removal versus nature base.
Maybe moving past the vocabulary, why did you decide to
(09:38):
develop this report, you know at this moment absolutely.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
First, let's maybe take a step back. The Basols Earth
Fund was born out of Jeff Bezos's ten billion dollar
commitment in twenty twenty to climate in nature, which is
the largest philanthropic commitment in this space in history. Through
one of our lenses, which is systems change. Greenhouse gas
removals was elevated early on as a high leverage opportunity
to impact people and planet. And the timing of this
(10:04):
roadmap really comes down to urgency, scale and coordination if
we want to hit our climate goals by twenty fifty,
especially the roadmap target we established of ten giga tons
of CO two removed per year. By then we just
can't wait. We have to start building now. But you
don't build a new sector of the climate economy by accident.
That takes a few decades, and that's if you're lucky.
(10:25):
You need a plan, and that's really what this roadmap is.
I'm an engineer and it just kind of drives me
nuts when I see hugely ambitious goals used to drive
near term actions without anyone actually having worked out the
potential path from now to then. How do you know
if you're doing the near term action big enough or
fast enough to prevent overshooting on your long term goal.
(10:47):
Ambitious goals kind of like moonshots, really require a strategic
path accounting for actions across many stakeholders and time sensitive
milestones and complex interdependencies. So I designed the JHDR roadmap
framework such that we worked backwards from the twenty fifty
flag we set of ten gigatons prey or removed, really
to ensure a set of timed actions, including the urgent
(11:08):
near term deadlines. At the basos are fun we see
removals greenhouse gas removals as a critical piece of the
climate solution set, but one that hasn't really gotten the
attention or the coordination it needs. So one of our
goals with this roadmap was to look at the entire
system of what's needed to get technologies to scale, not
just the science and engineering, but also the policy and regulation,
(11:28):
the market and the finance, the communities, because it's not
just about inventing the technology, it's also about securing public
trust and building the market and designing the right incentives
and scaling the infrastructure. There are just so many moving
parts and to make real progress, they all really need
to advance together. So we asked, what would it actually
take sector bi sector decade by decade to make large scale,
(11:50):
durable GHD removals a reality by twenty fifty.
Speaker 4 (11:53):
Yeah, and I just try to add to that, you know,
I think what Noel has just described is really a
systems change approach to understanding how to develop and deploy
a new technology. And it's something that RMI as an
organization is very aligned with.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
And so.
Speaker 4 (12:11):
You know, when the basis earth Front got in touch
with us and you know, was interested in putting together
a roadmap, you know, I think it made a lot
of sense to us of sort of their goals and
what they wanted to accomplish by laying out this strategy.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
So when we began.
Speaker 4 (12:25):
Working with them, you know, I think one of the
first things we did is to break out this question
into several layers.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
And you can see this reflected in the content of
the roadmap. Really, sections six, seven, and eight look at this,
and they look at this this question of, you know,
having identified a long term goal, how do we get
to that long term goal. They look at the path
from now until then from a couple different lenses, and
(12:51):
so chapter six really takes a qualitative look at the
different thematic areas that would need to be developed to
get us that twenty fifty goal. After seven takes a
more detailed look at the technology that would need to
be developed, and especially focused on the near term now
to twenty thirty five. And then chapter eight kind of
brings all of this together and looks at that development
(13:12):
over three temporal periods what we call dicatal periods, so
now to twenty thirty, twenty thirty to forty, and forty
to fifty. And when you look at these sort of
cross or interlinking kind of ways of looking at this
developmental you know approach from now to twenty fifty, it
hopefully paints a robust picture of what would be needed
(13:33):
to achieve that goal out to twenty fifty.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
So, speaking of that goal, I think, you know, depending
which climate scenario you look at, whether it's IPCC or
IEA or any of the other ones that are out there,
there are often different numbers cited for the amount of
technological greenhouse gas removal that will ultimately be needed in
(13:56):
you know, twenty fifty to help us maintain one point
five degrees of warming. As I mentioned during the introduction,
in your roadmap, you establish a goal of ten gigatons
per year by twenty fifty. Of course, this compares to
less than one megaton you know currently. How did you
arrive at this goal?
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Yeah? Yeah, good question.
Speaker 4 (14:17):
So, you know, first note, I think you said in
your intro rates like there's a distinction of sort of
like what is the roadmap? And I would say the
first thing to say about that ten gigaton goal is
that it's an aspirational goal. Right, So, as I said,
I think in one of your earlier questions, you know,
we look at the nature based solutions space and say, hmm,
you know, we're not sure if that's going to be
(14:38):
able to supply the removals we think we're going to
need in twenty fifty. What would it take to supply
a sufficient amount of technological GHDR to bridge that gap?
And moreover, how much GHDR just overall do we need
to stay in line with our climate goals? And so
we actually have a section in the report that speaks
(14:59):
specifically to your q from here, Eric, and I would
encourage anyone who's curious about this to take a look.
But you know, this ten gigaton goal has evolved, I
would say over the last ten or fifteen years, as
climate modeling has progressed, as carbon removal has entered the conversation.
You know, it wasn't that long ago, only ten or
fifteen years ago, that greenhouse gass removal was not discussed
(15:22):
and it was not part of the climate solution space
in a technological sense. And I would say, you know,
in the last ten years, we've seen it appear in
a series of different reports. The twenty eighteen IPCC Special
Report on one point five c first indicated that ten
gigatons of CDR per year would be needed The National
(15:44):
Academies of Science released report in twenty nineteen that looked
at the amount of CDR that would be needed by
mid century. There are now a variety of scenarios looking
at what it would take to stay within the one
point five to to see warming range, and some of
them have up to thirty gigatons a year of CDR
by twenty fifty, which is obviously massive amount of CDR.
(16:07):
We thought that ten gigatons a year was in the
range of realistic but also highly aspirational, and that's really,
you know, just to underscore what this report is meant
to be. This is an aspiration report. It's a call
to action of what would be needed to get us
to that place where we would like to be in
twenty fifty.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
This is absolutely one of those key questions we had
to grapple with right at the start, what number do
we aim for, because you can't really build a road
without knowing where you're going. Rudy shared how we landed
on ten gigatons per year. At the end of the day,
the amount of removals that we're going to need really
depends on the pace of emissions and also how the
climate is responding to warming. For instance, we may need
more aggressive reductions and removals if we're seeing that massive
(16:48):
unleashing of emissions in carbon stores due to the feedback loops,
for instance. And importantly to me, this isn't about locking
into one number forever. The roadmap is designed to be dynamic,
so as the science evolves, as technologies move along the
s curve, as we learn more about what nature based
solutions can and can't deliver, and how much emissions reductions
we should expect, we'll have to revisit and refine the goal.
(17:09):
So at the Earth Fund, we're not saying ten is
necessarily going to be the final answer. We're saying it's
a useful directional anchor to start immediately driving toward the
level of scale the climate challenge demands.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Interesting. So in the roadmap you articulate five broad categories
of greenhouse gas removal approaches that are in the scope
of the roadmap. I'm wondering if you could briefly describe those.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
Yeah, this is honestly one of the most exciting parts
of the Earth Fund initiative is exploring this range of
innovations happening across removals.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
We break it.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
Down into five broad categories, and each one offers a
really different approach to pulling greenhouse gases out of the
atmosphere oceans. You can find a comprehensive list of the
technologies we're considering in figure four of the roadmap, and
we also have a deep dive on each category in
chapter seven. First, there is what we call the air pathways,
include technologies like direct air capture, which Rudy mentioned, which
(18:03):
is basically using machines with fans and filters that literally
suck carbon dioxide molecules out of the air. Then there's
the rock pathways, such as processes that use crushed rocks
to speed up natural chemical reactions that remove CO two
over millennia and store it. Third, we looked at ocean pathways.
Some are working on processes that decrease the acidity of
(18:25):
ocean so they can sequester more carbon, or there's others
removing CO two directly from the seawater using electro chemistry,
or even some growing more macrology like seaweed that can
absorb CO two and then be sunk to the deep
ocean to store it for the long term. Next is
the land pathways, some of which focus on engineering plants
for example, to amplify photosynthesis and pull more carbon directly
(18:49):
from the air, or others like turning waste biomass into
oils or other easily stored or usable forms. And finally,
we also include a category on non one CO two
greenhouse gases like methane and nitrosoxide. Technologies in this category
are at a much earlier stage. Like I've mentioned, one
example is using catalysts that break down the methane in
(19:11):
the atmosphere faster than it would break down normally. There's
a lot of exciting work still to be done here.
Speaker 4 (19:17):
Yeah, and I think I would just add, you know,
to your question Eric of like, you know, what's exciting here?
I mean, there's exciting things about each of these pathways, right,
but maybe one of the really exciting things is just
that there's so many pathways, right, There's so many ways
of doing removal, and I think it's exciting to think about, like, well,
which one of them you know, could advance? What roles
can they play in like the near term and also
the long term.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Right.
Speaker 4 (19:37):
They rely on different industries, they interact with different stakeholders,
so there's a lot of potential there really interesting.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
So another key piece of the roadmap, of course, is
something you alluded to earlier, which is, you know, you
talk about the variety of elements stakeholders that ultimately need
to be involved in this process, in this roadmap in
order to develop a robust and scaled greenhouse gas removal industry.
I was wondering, Rudy, maybe you could explain, you know,
(20:06):
some of those steps some of the stakeholders.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Sure.
Speaker 4 (20:10):
Yeah, So this this really gets into the core content
of the roadmap. And as I mentioned earlier, I think
there's two sections that are particularly relevant to your question here,
which is section six, which is on the thematic stakeholders,
and then section eight on the decatur initiatives. I'll talk
a little bit maybe about the Decatur initiatives, and then
maybe no I can say something about some of the
(20:31):
thematic stakeholders, you know, I think for the decaturs. And
this is our section eight of the roadmap. You know,
the way we looked at this was to say, there
are some core categories of activity that are going to
be needed from this system's change perspective to get us
towards this twenty to fifty goal that we've set out
right so you know, just just to think about some
(20:53):
of these that are relevant. There's things like workforce planning,
infrastructure permitting, financing, standard setting, market infrastructure demand for CDR. Right,
all of these things are going to be important to
incubate across a timeline out to twenty fifty, in line
with each other and keeping pace with the amount of
(21:14):
deployment of.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
GHDR that we've laid out in the roadmap.
Speaker 4 (21:19):
So you know, just to look at an example of
one of these, right. So, something that I think is
probably of interest to a lot of folks in this
space is, you know, where are we going to find
sufficient demand for GHDR over the long term. So, for example,
we have a category that speaks to this and is
(21:40):
looking at, you know, what's needed over these three decatled periods,
and you know what we see is like from now
to twenty thirty, there's an important role of purchasing from
voluntary carbon markets, and we've laid out in the roadmap
what kind of scale that would have to get to
by twenty thirty, which we put somewhere in the range
of forty to sixty billion dollars a year of voluntary
(22:03):
purchases to continue to scale beyond that through the next
decade thirty to forty and then forty to fifty. Really
the demand market would need to move toward some kind
of publicly mandated procurement, and that can take many forms,
and we can talk about how that might kind of
play out, but what those dicatal periods outline is how
(22:25):
that shift goes from voluntary markets towards some kind of
more robust system that generates demand sufficient to achieve these
deployment goals out to twenty fifty.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
And to add a little more color to the S
and T side of the dicatal evolution, you'll notice as
you're reading across these dicatabal activities and investments that we
need to be driving and accelerating the shift from low
technology ready in this levels or trls, to high So
there's a focus on early stage lab research, early on
R and D or research and development, such as for instance,
(22:59):
understanding carbon flows in the ocean, and then progressing rapidly
to engineering breakthroughs like developing lower cost sorbents for director capture,
to then pilots and real demo projects and other activities
leading to full commercial deployment. So the bottom line is
that this decade is about discovery and demonstration to lead
into adoption in the thirties and expansion in the forties.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
And it's I think unfortunately impossible to talk about anything
related to climate tech, in particular green coouse gas removal
without talking about what's happening here in the States and
the current administration's decision to eliminate climate funding. Basically, I'm curious,
(23:43):
you know, if, given the fact that your roadmap was
developed in advance of these policy changes, if your outlook
has ultimately changed at all as a result.
Speaker 4 (23:54):
And I think at a high level, there's an important
piece of framing to keep in mind, right, Well, a
couple as we've already said, right, First of all, this
is an aspirational roadmap. It sets a goal and then
defines a path for achieving that goal. But I think
another important piece that shouldn't be lost is that it's
a global roadmap.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
Right.
Speaker 4 (24:11):
So the idea here is like, this is what would
be needed to achieve these goals at a global level,
and it's really trying to think beyond just the constraints
of a current administration or a current policy regime, whatever
the case. Right, And so what we've laid out here
is really Yeah, the roadmap, it's the plan for how
you would achieve those goals. And you know, I would say,
(24:31):
of course, you know, policies come and go. There's always
changes in policy environments. Right, These have impacts, you know,
within a sort of near term environment. But there's a
lot of stakeholders, right, Government is one stakeholder. There's a
lot of other investors in the space. There's philanthropic funders,
you know, there's private investors. You know, I think what
(24:53):
this what this roadmap is really meant to be as
a tool for any of those stakeholders to get involved
and start taking action towards this goal.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
What we're laying out isn't just about any one policy
or any one administration or even any one single country.
It's really about building a new industry. We see technological
greenhouse gas removal as part of the next generation of
new tech. And what's really exciting is that this is
still a very nascent space. Ten years ago, Like Rudy said,
most of these approaches weren't even on the table. The
roadmap shows just how big this needs to get. We're
(25:24):
talking about scaling from less than one million tons per
year today to four orders of magnitude larger by twenty fifty.
That's just an enormous industrial transformation, which means challenge, but
it also means opportunity for those who want to jump in.
So yes, government support matters and policies matter, but the
roadmap is meant to be a flexible tool, one that
can help guide actions even when the political wind shift.
(25:45):
And in the meantime, we're seeing growing interest from investors,
from startups, from corporates, and even regional and other governments
who see this as a new economic opportunity, not just
a climate obligation.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Interesting, so you mentioned, of course the idea that you know,
this isn't a roadmap that is US focus. It's a
global roadmap, and I do want to come back to
that point in a bit, but maybe before we do,
keeping the focus a little bit on the US. As
many of us know, in the US, we currently have
the forty five Q tax credit, which currently provides a
(26:19):
credit of between sixty dollars and one hundred and eighty
dollars per metric tone captured, with the higher values obviously
going towards technologies that provide permanent storage. I'm wondering if
you can talk us through other current or potential incentives
that may be available for scaling greenhouse gas removal.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
Yeah, glad to add a couple here.
Speaker 4 (26:43):
I mean, I think forty five Q is certainly a
very important policy signal, right, and I think it's one
that there's a lot of awareness about in the CDR space.
One of the things that actually is quite high on
people's radar from a policy perspective is that forty five
Q and maybe some of your listeners aware of this,
(27:04):
it only applies to direct air capture, right, And there's
a lot of other approaches in our roadmap and a
lot of other approaches to technological GHDR that actually do
not qualify for it simply because they aren't using machines
essentially to extract CO two from the air. So forty
five Q is important, and it's an important you know,
lever and again a policy signal for you know, the
(27:26):
role that CDR can play. But it's it was by
no means, you know, even from the beginning, sort of
an end all, be all kind of policy. So that said,
it is an important one, and it's an important one
for the signal that it sends. There are other really
important signals and policies and incentives related to GHDR. So
another one is just direct procurement. Microsoft is currently just
(27:51):
far and away a leader on supporting CDR through direct procurement.
They have several really good white papers about this.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Their goal is to.
Speaker 4 (28:01):
I believe, remove all of their ongoing emissions, but also
retroactively remove their past emissions, which is an incredibly ambitious goal.
Other tech leaders are also working in this space. Google
has also initiated some direct procurement. They've collaborated that with
some of the actions that the Department of Energy has
(28:22):
taken on its pilot direct procurement program. So that's another
way of I think you incentivizing or pushing forward GHDR.
Some of the companies that we work with take a
third approach, which we call in setting, and there's obviously
many ways to do in setting besides just in carbon removal.
But there are certain industries, and mining is a good
(28:43):
example of this where some changes to the internal processes
of the organization or of the company can actually result
in removals.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Right.
Speaker 4 (28:54):
So, mining companies are already working with a lot of
alkalin minerals and based on some of the activities they
take on site, they can actually do removals on site
by tweaking some of their processes. So you know, there's
many ways even beyond just policy to support the industry.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
Another really promising approach we highlight in the roadmap is
the use of advanced market commitments or AMCs. So these
are essentially commitments from buyers which provide a signal and
give early stage companies the financial confidence to develop and deploy.
So there are delayed payment AMC's where the buyer is
committed once the technology price has gotten down to a
certain point. There are other types, like upfront payment AMC's
(29:32):
that provide amedia capital and require trust that the company
will deliver. One of the most well known examples is Frontier,
the private sector coalition backed by companies like Stripe and
Alphabet and Shopify, which is committed to buying one billion
dollars in removals by twenty thirty. We're also starting to
talk about public sector AMCs in this removal space. Similar
(29:54):
to how vaccine development was incentivized through initiatives like GAVI,
the Vaccine Alliance so GAVE helped coordinate advanced purchase commitments
from governments and donors, which in turn gave vaccine manufacturers
the confidence to scale up R and D and production
before the products were fully developed. So in the GHDR
roadmap we talk about this as part of creating demand
(30:16):
demand pull for the technology, especially in the twenty twenties
when costs are still high in technologies aren't all proven
at scale. So the key takeaway is by stacking these
incentives public and private early in late stage, we can
de risk this space and help bring this technology to
market faster.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
That's super interesting. The idea of demand poll, I think
is really important because, of course, one of the challenges
that we often hear when discussing this is, unlike maybe
carbon credits in the regional greenhouse gas initiative or the EUETS,
where credits are ultimately designed to become more expensive over time,
(30:53):
it's our hope, of course, that the price of a
removal ton becomes cheaper over time. That idea of demand
pol is really important.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
So are there.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
Regions outside of the US where ultimately, either current or
emerging policy is more favorable towards greenhouse gast removal?
Speaker 4 (31:13):
Yeah, I mean, no doubt the US is a global
leader in GHDR, but I'd say, you know, there are
other regions around the world that are stepping up and
increasingly getting active in the space. So we have been
working a bit with some different organizations in Canada that
are interested in scaling up GHDR specifically CDR or we
(31:35):
have a couple of organizations that we're in touch with
in China and India that are looking at CDR. Japan
also has some new industries emerging around CDR. One of
the interesting things to note about this, of course, is
that with all of these different technological GHDR solutions, different
solutions are going to be better suited to different geographies,
(31:58):
right and different geology if it's you know, working on
some kind of rock CDR for example. So there are
some countries that have you know, really good resources of
let's say, low carbon energy, and so it's easy for
them to deploy direct air capture, which requires a lot
of that right no other regions. India is a good
example the activities there. They don't have a lot of
(32:20):
excess low carbon energy, but biochar actually turns out to
be something that there's a lot of excitement about there
and the role that it could play, so different regions.
You know, I think it's it's reasonable to expect that
different regions would focus on different specific approaches and incubate
those accordingly.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
That makes great sense. So obviously you know there there
are those out there who who may be less you know,
favorable towards greenhouse cast removal. I think one of the
arguments that we hear from that side is the idea
of kind of moral hazard, which is basically suggesting, of course,
that if we develop these technologies, then ultimately, you know,
(33:00):
people or industries, companies, et cetera, will feel like they
don't need to reduce emissions as much because we have
the ability to remove those emissions. Do you think there's
any validity to this argument?
Speaker 4 (33:13):
Yeah, this is a really important question, and Eric, I
mean I almost wish you would have asked it to
us first, right because I think it's it's just so
important for framing the role that GHDR should play in
a climate aligned future. If this is the kind of
thing that you know your listeners are interested in, So
just as like a touch point here of like putting
some numbers on it. We're currently emitting forty gigatons a
(33:36):
year roughly through anthropogenic emissions, and depending on what scenarios
you look at, that could be increasing to sixty or
even eighty gigatons a year. And if we're telling you
that if we max everything out and things go great
and we can do ten gigatons of removals, right, the
math does not add up. There's not enough removals to
take care of things if we don't reduce. And so
I think the key message is to say we must reduce,
(33:59):
but we also have to have this removal component. And
you know, just to kind of put that in context
with the sort of bathtub analogy which probably many of
your listeners have heard, right, It's like, if we're filling
up the bathtub with CO two and removals are one
way to drain that bathtub, we have to turn off
the tap before you know, we think that the draining
(34:21):
is really going to help us get to where we
need to go.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Absolutely, you know, I love that analogy.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
It's just a really important question and one that comes
up often when we're talking about removals. So all kind
of echo Rudy that the reality is that emissions reductions
alone are just no longer enough. According to the IPCC,
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, even with aggressive emissions cuts,
removals are unavoidable, which I translate into we need removals
(34:47):
in order to avoid the worst impacts to people on
the planet. And importantly, I think what we're all saying
is this is not a substitution for emissions cuts, it's
a compliment. The Bezos Earth Fund continues to emphasize that
the only viable path forward is to do both. We
need to reduce emissions as fast as possible, and we're
supporting that path and build the capacity to remove greenhouse gases. So,
(35:09):
rather than being a moral hazard, I kind of see
the need for removals as a reflection of the urgency
and scale of the challenge we face. If anything, it
underscores how far behind we are and how much more
we need to do on all fronts.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
Absolutely so, maybe, as the last question, curious to hear
from both of you, what's next from the Bezos Earth
Fund and r am I on the greenhouse gas removal topic.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
This is just the beginning. At the Bezos Earth Fund,
we see technological greenhouse gas removals as an area of
major importance. It's a relatively new space, but one with
huge potential not just for climate impact, but also for
industry creation and scientific advancement, entrepreneurship and innovation and economic opportunity. So,
together with others already in this space like r AM,
(35:51):
I we're thinking about how to translate this roadmap into action,
identifying what's urgently needed now and what's going to take
decades to mature but needs to get started. Meet. Internally
at the Earth Fund, I'm working on what our next
steps will be with others, including my partner on this,
Kelly Levin, who's our chief of Science, Data and Systems Change.
Our early exploration of the space at the Earth Fund
(36:12):
included an ideation prize, and you listeners can follow along
with the prize projects we're supporting online. We also hosted
an expert workshop last year together with US Department of
Energy and Stanford University, which some of the listeners might
have taken part in, and which led us to this.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
Roadmap with RMI.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
I also want to take a moment to acknowledge the researchers, entrepreneurs, policymakers,
advocates and funders who have been working on removals long
before it was getting mainstream attention and even before the
basis Earth Fund was on the stage. Here, this roadmap
builds on years of that foundational work by so many
and we're just deeply grateful for that. But the circle
is widening and the future is going to be driven
(36:50):
in conjunction with new voices and new partnerships and new
funding and bold action across research, industry, philanthropy and government.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
So let's do this.
Speaker 4 (37:00):
Yeah, And I'll just add, you know, for our omis part,
we're you know, very excited to be a part of
this roadmap effort with the besis Or Fund, and you know,
are really excited for all that they're doing to advance
the space UH and and work on these issues for us.
A lot of what our team and what our institute
focuses on is understanding energy broadly, but also advancing from
(37:25):
a technological perspective some of these uh these new emerging solutions.
So it's something we continue to work on.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
You know.
Speaker 4 (37:33):
One of the things one of the ways that we
look at doing that is not just writing roadmaps, but
thinking about how we can actualize some of the findings.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
Of the roadmaps in the real world.
Speaker 4 (37:42):
So our team is working on first projects and deployments
UH and assisting a number of different stakeholders in deploying
GHDR projects in the real world some of this.
Speaker 2 (37:56):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (37:57):
One of the ones that I'm particularly excited that our
team is working on is industrial integration, which I mentioned earlier, right,
so working with industries that already have scale and helping
them integrate carbon removal technologies into their processes. And then
another really big one that our team has identified as
something that is both needed and that we think we
(38:18):
can move the need along is demand for CDR right,
and so you know, one of the things just looking
out into the future is we really need to unlock
demand at scale if this industry is going to take off.
We think it's possible, but that's something we're really focused.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
On absolutely now. That makes great sense. And Noel, going
back to here comment, I like the idea of closing
with the idea of the circle widening. So with that,
Noel Rudy, thank you so much for taking the time
to join us. So, as always, you can find more
information on all things ESG by going to our dashboard
bispace ESG, go on the Bloomberg terminal, and if you
(38:53):
have an ESG quandry or burning question you'd like to
ask bi's expert analysts, send us an email at ESG
rants at Bloomberg dot net. Thank you very much and
we'll see you next time.
ESG has become established as a key business theme as
companies and investors seek to navigate the climate crisis, energy transition,
social mega trends, mounting regulatory tension, and pressure from other stakeholders.
The rapidly evolving landscape has become inundated with acronyms, buzzwords
and lingo, and we aim to break these down with
(00:31):
industry experts. Welcome to ESG Currents, your guide to navigating
the evolving ESG space, one topic at a time, Brought
to you by Bloomberg Intelligence, part of Bloomberg's Research department
with five hundred analysts and strategists working across all major
world markets. I'm Eric Cain, director of ESG Research for
(00:53):
Bloomberg Intelligence, and today we're talking about greenhouse gas removal.
Although reducing greenhouse gas emissions remains the top priority in
addressing climate change, it's increasingly clear that these efforts must
be complemented by greenhouse gas removal in order to achieve
long term climate goals. The extent of removals needed is
(01:16):
difficult to pin down, but a recent report by the
Bezos Earth Fund and the Rocky Mountain Institute is anchored
around the idea that we need to achieve ten gigatons
in annual technological removals by twenty fifty. The report, which
is called Scaling Technological Greenhouse Gas REMOVALAD a Global Roadmap
(01:38):
to twenty fifty, does what the title suggests and provides
a roadmap by stakeholder group and by initiative of the
steps needed to achieve this massive increase in scale from
less than one megaton currently. Today, I'm joined by two
authors of this report, Noel Bactian, who is the director
of Technology Acceleration and GHD Removal in Lead at the
(02:01):
Bezos Earth Fund, and Rudy Kesar, who is a Principle
for Climate Aligned Industries at the Rocky Mountain Institute. Noel
and Rudy, thank you so much for taking the time
to join the program.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Yeah, thanks Eric, and thanks for the invite.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Huge thanks to Bloomberg and do you Eric for having
us in shining a light on this work. I'm really
excited to.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Be here, wonderful. So with that, maybe we can get started. So,
as I mentioned in the intro, you recently published a
report called Scaling Technological Greenhouse Gas Removal a Global Roadmap
to twenty fifty. Before we get into the details. I
think there's a key distinction that you make in this
report between technological greenhouse gas removal and nature based greenhouse
(02:43):
gas removal. I'm wondering, Rudy, if maybe you could walk
us through the difference and the decision to focus this
roadmap on the former.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (02:52):
Thanks, Eric, I think this is a good place to start.
I think a lot of your listeners will be familiar
with nature based removals, but perhaps less familiar with technological GHDR.
And as you say, it's an important distinction that we
made in producing this roadmap. So nature based removals these are,
you know, we think of these as sort of living
(03:12):
biomass type removals, and this can include things like forestation,
a forestation, reforestation, soil carbon management, the sort of activities
that are meant to maintain ecosystems and remove carbon through
living biomass. For the most part, the other category and
the one that we really focused on with this roadmap,
(03:34):
technological GHGR are all of these other new, really newer
approaches that tend to have higher durabilities, greater potential to scale.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Some of the approaches.
Speaker 4 (03:46):
That might be familiar to some of your listeners are
things like direct air capture sometimes called DAK, or bio
energy with carbon capture sometimes called BEX. So some of
these terms might be familiar, but you know, there's actually
a whole hot mo of them across a variety of categories,
and we'll tell you more about those in a little bit.
But I think it's a really interesting space because the
(04:07):
technological GHGR side of the removals space is actually quite
large and growing quickly.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Absolutely, this is just a really important distinction, and when
we thought really carefully about at the Earth Fund when
we were launching the greenhouse gas removal initiative and then
starting to plan out the roadmap, nature based removals are
essential and are already doing a lot of the heavy
lifting here at the Basos Earth Fund. We already have
major commitments and grants in place supporting the nature piece,
including a one billion dollar commitment to restoration which we're
(04:38):
currently working on in Africa, the US, and Brazil. But
we also recognize that given the scale of removals needed,
it's unlikely that pure nature based solutions can get us
all the way there, given land constraints and possible removal reversals.
For example, wildfires that release a forest stored carbon back
into the atmosphere. However, by harnessing technological solutions to pull
(05:01):
greenhouse gases out of the environment, there's an opportunity there
to really achieve the necessary removals we need. And this
was born the greenhouse Gas Removal Initiative at the Earth
fun focused on technological removals to complement our nature based work.
I'm just really excited about the space because it's not
really an either or We absolutely meet both. Nature is vital,
(05:21):
but to meet the scale of what's needed, we need
to build a complementary technological removal industry that can grow
reliably and durably alongside the nature based solution.
Speaker 4 (05:29):
Yeah, if I could just add one thing to that, Eric,
you know, I think one of the key things that
motivated our roadmap, and I think we'll talk about this
and you know a little bit later in the conversation,
but just this idea that you know, ten gigatons a
year is is hot a big target for what we're
trying to hit, but that it's a really difficult target
(05:51):
for nature based removals, a load to hit. There's been
a number of papers that have come out recently that
have really questioned the ability of nature based removals to
hit the kinds of removals that we need to hit
our climate goals. And you know, one of the goals
of this roadmap and why it really took a focus
on technological GHDR, was to say, hey, we're not sure
(06:13):
that the nature based removals are going to get us there,
and so we want to make sure that you know,
if we needed technological GHDR, this is how we would
be able to supply it.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
Another way to think about it is how do we
take the natural systems that are already working across planet
Earth and enhance them through the power of science and
engineering and human ingenuity so that they can do even more.
Ocean and lands already remove twenty three gigatons equivalent of
CO two per year, and to put that in perspective,
humans admit about fifty seven gigatons equivalent per year by
burning fossil fuels. So how can we leverage those planetary
(06:44):
scale existing processes to really tilt the balance of natural
removals even more?
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Very interesting and certainly the idea of it not being
in case of either or I think as important. Obviously,
like I said in the introduction, you know the first
a day, of course, is reducing greenhouse gas emissions. All
these things that you know ultimately need to work in concert.
It's not just about one of these solutions. So another
key distinction that you make in the report is you're
(07:13):
talking about greenhouse gas removal. I think many of us
are accustomed to hearing about carbon removal. Can you tell
us about this distinction? Noel, maybe you'll start.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Yeah, that's a great question, and it gets it's something
really foundational. Carbon removals or carbon dioxide removals typically shortened
to CDR is really picking up speed as an industry term,
which is great. We intentionally use the term greenhouse gas
removal and the roadmap because carbon dioxide is not the
only gas that we might be able to use as
a lever here. It's the most well known for sure,
(07:45):
But methane and nitrous oxide, for instance, are also incredibly
potent greenhouse gases. Methane, for instance, has about eighty times
the worming power of CO two over a twenty year period,
and nitrous oxide is two hundred and seventy three times
more powerful as a worm agent over one hundred year
time scale. But methane and nitros oxide removal approaches are
still very much in their infancy and need to be
(08:07):
really deeply explored so we can understand if they can
adequately scale to make an impact, and if and how
we should prioritize them. So in the roadmap, we really
make the case that we need to think more broadly
at the start, especially as we look at this at
a systems level. So ultimately we made this distinction to
highlight that the path to twenty fifty sure is heck
better take into consideration all the removals at the start,
(08:29):
especially since we need to figure some of that out
from first principles right now in order to be able
to scale by twenty fifty.
Speaker 4 (08:36):
Yeah, and I just want to add, you know, for
anyone who's listening that wants to follow along. In the report,
we actually wrote out quite a bit of this justification.
We have a section four of the report that talks
about the scope, and I just try to underline what
Noel just said. Right, One of the big conclusions of
this report was to say, you know, we're working on
technological carbon removal now, but there's potentially ways of removing
(09:00):
these other gases, but there's such early stage TRL that
really the conclusion of the report was to say, and
we really need a lot more basic science at this
point to understand if we want to do them, if
it's possible to do them, what it would look like
to actually deploy, you know, approaches for removing those gases.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
So I think we talked about some of the vocabulary
that you introduced right at the beginning of the report. Again,
the distinction of course, you know, between greenhouse gas removal,
carbon removal, and also technological greenhouse gas removal versus nature base.
Maybe moving past the vocabulary, why did you decide to
(09:38):
develop this report, you know at this moment absolutely.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
First, let's maybe take a step back. The Basols Earth
Fund was born out of Jeff Bezos's ten billion dollar
commitment in twenty twenty to climate in nature, which is
the largest philanthropic commitment in this space in history. Through
one of our lenses, which is systems change. Greenhouse gas
removals was elevated early on as a high leverage opportunity
to impact people and planet. And the timing of this
(10:04):
roadmap really comes down to urgency, scale and coordination if
we want to hit our climate goals by twenty fifty,
especially the roadmap target we established of ten giga tons
of CO two removed per year. By then we just
can't wait. We have to start building now. But you
don't build a new sector of the climate economy by accident.
That takes a few decades, and that's if you're lucky.
(10:25):
You need a plan, and that's really what this roadmap is.
I'm an engineer and it just kind of drives me
nuts when I see hugely ambitious goals used to drive
near term actions without anyone actually having worked out the
potential path from now to then. How do you know
if you're doing the near term action big enough or
fast enough to prevent overshooting on your long term goal.
(10:47):
Ambitious goals kind of like moonshots, really require a strategic
path accounting for actions across many stakeholders and time sensitive
milestones and complex interdependencies. So I designed the JHDR roadmap
framework such that we worked backwards from the twenty fifty
flag we set of ten gigatons prey or removed, really
to ensure a set of timed actions, including the urgent
(11:08):
near term deadlines. At the basos are fun we see
removals greenhouse gas removals as a critical piece of the
climate solution set, but one that hasn't really gotten the
attention or the coordination it needs. So one of our
goals with this roadmap was to look at the entire
system of what's needed to get technologies to scale, not
just the science and engineering, but also the policy and regulation,
(11:28):
the market and the finance, the communities, because it's not
just about inventing the technology, it's also about securing public
trust and building the market and designing the right incentives
and scaling the infrastructure. There are just so many moving
parts and to make real progress, they all really need
to advance together. So we asked, what would it actually
take sector bi sector decade by decade to make large scale,
(11:50):
durable GHD removals a reality by twenty fifty.
Speaker 4 (11:53):
Yeah, and I just try to add to that, you know,
I think what Noel has just described is really a
systems change approach to understanding how to develop and deploy
a new technology. And it's something that RMI as an
organization is very aligned with.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
And so.
Speaker 4 (12:11):
You know, when the basis earth Front got in touch
with us and you know, was interested in putting together
a roadmap, you know, I think it made a lot
of sense to us of sort of their goals and
what they wanted to accomplish by laying out this strategy.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
So when we began.
Speaker 4 (12:25):
Working with them, you know, I think one of the
first things we did is to break out this question
into several layers.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
And you can see this reflected in the content of
the roadmap. Really, sections six, seven, and eight look at this,
and they look at this this question of, you know,
having identified a long term goal, how do we get
to that long term goal. They look at the path
from now until then from a couple different lenses, and
(12:51):
so chapter six really takes a qualitative look at the
different thematic areas that would need to be developed to
get us that twenty fifty goal. After seven takes a
more detailed look at the technology that would need to
be developed, and especially focused on the near term now
to twenty thirty five. And then chapter eight kind of
brings all of this together and looks at that development
(13:12):
over three temporal periods what we call dicatal periods, so
now to twenty thirty, twenty thirty to forty, and forty
to fifty. And when you look at these sort of
cross or interlinking kind of ways of looking at this
developmental you know approach from now to twenty fifty, it
hopefully paints a robust picture of what would be needed
(13:33):
to achieve that goal out to twenty fifty.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
So, speaking of that goal, I think, you know, depending
which climate scenario you look at, whether it's IPCC or
IEA or any of the other ones that are out there,
there are often different numbers cited for the amount of
technological greenhouse gas removal that will ultimately be needed in
(13:56):
you know, twenty fifty to help us maintain one point
five degrees of warming. As I mentioned during the introduction,
in your roadmap, you establish a goal of ten gigatons
per year by twenty fifty. Of course, this compares to
less than one megaton you know currently. How did you
arrive at this goal?
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Yeah? Yeah, good question.
Speaker 4 (14:17):
So, you know, first note, I think you said in
your intro rates like there's a distinction of sort of
like what is the roadmap? And I would say the
first thing to say about that ten gigaton goal is
that it's an aspirational goal. Right, So, as I said,
I think in one of your earlier questions, you know,
we look at the nature based solutions space and say, hmm,
you know, we're not sure if that's going to be
(14:38):
able to supply the removals we think we're going to
need in twenty fifty. What would it take to supply
a sufficient amount of technological GHDR to bridge that gap?
And moreover, how much GHDR just overall do we need
to stay in line with our climate goals? And so
we actually have a section in the report that speaks
(14:59):
specifically to your q from here, Eric, and I would
encourage anyone who's curious about this to take a look.
But you know, this ten gigaton goal has evolved, I
would say over the last ten or fifteen years, as
climate modeling has progressed, as carbon removal has entered the conversation.
You know, it wasn't that long ago, only ten or
fifteen years ago, that greenhouse gass removal was not discussed
(15:22):
and it was not part of the climate solution space
in a technological sense. And I would say, you know,
in the last ten years, we've seen it appear in
a series of different reports. The twenty eighteen IPCC Special
Report on one point five c first indicated that ten
gigatons of CDR per year would be needed The National
(15:44):
Academies of Science released report in twenty nineteen that looked
at the amount of CDR that would be needed by
mid century. There are now a variety of scenarios looking
at what it would take to stay within the one
point five to to see warming range, and some of
them have up to thirty gigatons a year of CDR
by twenty fifty, which is obviously massive amount of CDR.
(16:07):
We thought that ten gigatons a year was in the
range of realistic but also highly aspirational, and that's really,
you know, just to underscore what this report is meant
to be. This is an aspiration report. It's a call
to action of what would be needed to get us
to that place where we would like to be in
twenty fifty.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
This is absolutely one of those key questions we had
to grapple with right at the start, what number do
we aim for, because you can't really build a road
without knowing where you're going. Rudy shared how we landed
on ten gigatons per year. At the end of the day,
the amount of removals that we're going to need really
depends on the pace of emissions and also how the
climate is responding to warming. For instance, we may need
more aggressive reductions and removals if we're seeing that massive
(16:48):
unleashing of emissions in carbon stores due to the feedback loops,
for instance. And importantly to me, this isn't about locking
into one number forever. The roadmap is designed to be dynamic,
so as the science evolves, as technologies move along the
s curve, as we learn more about what nature based
solutions can and can't deliver, and how much emissions reductions
we should expect, we'll have to revisit and refine the goal.
(17:09):
So at the Earth Fund, we're not saying ten is
necessarily going to be the final answer. We're saying it's
a useful directional anchor to start immediately driving toward the
level of scale the climate challenge demands.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Interesting. So in the roadmap you articulate five broad categories
of greenhouse gas removal approaches that are in the scope
of the roadmap. I'm wondering if you could briefly describe those.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
Yeah, this is honestly one of the most exciting parts
of the Earth Fund initiative is exploring this range of
innovations happening across removals.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
We break it.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
Down into five broad categories, and each one offers a
really different approach to pulling greenhouse gases out of the
atmosphere oceans. You can find a comprehensive list of the
technologies we're considering in figure four of the roadmap, and
we also have a deep dive on each category in
chapter seven. First, there is what we call the air pathways,
include technologies like direct air capture, which Rudy mentioned, which
(18:03):
is basically using machines with fans and filters that literally
suck carbon dioxide molecules out of the air. Then there's
the rock pathways, such as processes that use crushed rocks
to speed up natural chemical reactions that remove CO two
over millennia and store it. Third, we looked at ocean pathways.
Some are working on processes that decrease the acidity of
(18:25):
ocean so they can sequester more carbon, or there's others
removing CO two directly from the seawater using electro chemistry,
or even some growing more macrology like seaweed that can
absorb CO two and then be sunk to the deep
ocean to store it for the long term. Next is
the land pathways, some of which focus on engineering plants
for example, to amplify photosynthesis and pull more carbon directly
(18:49):
from the air, or others like turning waste biomass into
oils or other easily stored or usable forms. And finally,
we also include a category on non one CO two
greenhouse gases like methane and nitrosoxide. Technologies in this category
are at a much earlier stage. Like I've mentioned, one
example is using catalysts that break down the methane in
(19:11):
the atmosphere faster than it would break down normally. There's
a lot of exciting work still to be done here.
Speaker 4 (19:17):
Yeah, and I think I would just add, you know,
to your question Eric of like, you know, what's exciting here?
I mean, there's exciting things about each of these pathways, right,
but maybe one of the really exciting things is just
that there's so many pathways, right, There's so many ways
of doing removal, and I think it's exciting to think about, like, well,
which one of them you know, could advance? What roles
can they play in like the near term and also
the long term.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Right.
Speaker 4 (19:37):
They rely on different industries, they interact with different stakeholders,
so there's a lot of potential there really interesting.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
So another key piece of the roadmap, of course, is
something you alluded to earlier, which is, you know, you
talk about the variety of elements stakeholders that ultimately need
to be involved in this process, in this roadmap in
order to develop a robust and scaled greenhouse gas removal industry.
I was wondering, Rudy, maybe you could explain, you know,
(20:06):
some of those steps some of the stakeholders.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Sure.
Speaker 4 (20:10):
Yeah, So this this really gets into the core content
of the roadmap. And as I mentioned earlier, I think
there's two sections that are particularly relevant to your question here,
which is section six, which is on the thematic stakeholders,
and then section eight on the decatur initiatives. I'll talk
a little bit maybe about the Decatur initiatives, and then
maybe no I can say something about some of the
(20:31):
thematic stakeholders, you know, I think for the decaturs. And
this is our section eight of the roadmap. You know,
the way we looked at this was to say, there
are some core categories of activity that are going to
be needed from this system's change perspective to get us
towards this twenty to fifty goal that we've set out
right so you know, just just to think about some
(20:53):
of these that are relevant. There's things like workforce planning,
infrastructure permitting, financing, standard setting, market infrastructure demand for CDR. Right,
all of these things are going to be important to
incubate across a timeline out to twenty fifty, in line
with each other and keeping pace with the amount of
(21:14):
deployment of.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
GHDR that we've laid out in the roadmap.
Speaker 4 (21:19):
So you know, just to look at an example of
one of these, right. So, something that I think is
probably of interest to a lot of folks in this
space is, you know, where are we going to find
sufficient demand for GHDR over the long term. So, for example,
we have a category that speaks to this and is
(21:40):
looking at, you know, what's needed over these three decatled periods,
and you know what we see is like from now
to twenty thirty, there's an important role of purchasing from
voluntary carbon markets, and we've laid out in the roadmap
what kind of scale that would have to get to
by twenty thirty, which we put somewhere in the range
of forty to sixty billion dollars a year of voluntary
(22:03):
purchases to continue to scale beyond that through the next
decade thirty to forty and then forty to fifty. Really
the demand market would need to move toward some kind
of publicly mandated procurement, and that can take many forms,
and we can talk about how that might kind of
play out, but what those dicatal periods outline is how
(22:25):
that shift goes from voluntary markets towards some kind of
more robust system that generates demand sufficient to achieve these
deployment goals out to twenty fifty.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
And to add a little more color to the S
and T side of the dicatal evolution, you'll notice as
you're reading across these dicatabal activities and investments that we
need to be driving and accelerating the shift from low
technology ready in this levels or trls, to high So
there's a focus on early stage lab research, early on
R and D or research and development, such as for instance,
(22:59):
understanding carbon flows in the ocean, and then progressing rapidly
to engineering breakthroughs like developing lower cost sorbents for director capture,
to then pilots and real demo projects and other activities
leading to full commercial deployment. So the bottom line is
that this decade is about discovery and demonstration to lead
into adoption in the thirties and expansion in the forties.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
And it's I think unfortunately impossible to talk about anything
related to climate tech, in particular green coouse gas removal
without talking about what's happening here in the States and
the current administration's decision to eliminate climate funding. Basically, I'm curious,
(23:43):
you know, if, given the fact that your roadmap was
developed in advance of these policy changes, if your outlook
has ultimately changed at all as a result.
Speaker 4 (23:54):
And I think at a high level, there's an important
piece of framing to keep in mind, right, Well, a
couple as we've already said, right, First of all, this
is an aspirational roadmap. It sets a goal and then
defines a path for achieving that goal. But I think
another important piece that shouldn't be lost is that it's
a global roadmap.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
Right.
Speaker 4 (24:11):
So the idea here is like, this is what would
be needed to achieve these goals at a global level,
and it's really trying to think beyond just the constraints
of a current administration or a current policy regime, whatever
the case. Right, And so what we've laid out here
is really Yeah, the roadmap, it's the plan for how
you would achieve those goals. And you know, I would say,
(24:31):
of course, you know, policies come and go. There's always
changes in policy environments. Right, These have impacts, you know,
within a sort of near term environment. But there's a
lot of stakeholders, right, Government is one stakeholder. There's a
lot of other investors in the space. There's philanthropic funders,
you know, there's private investors. You know, I think what
(24:53):
this what this roadmap is really meant to be as
a tool for any of those stakeholders to get involved
and start taking action towards this goal.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
What we're laying out isn't just about any one policy
or any one administration or even any one single country.
It's really about building a new industry. We see technological
greenhouse gas removal as part of the next generation of
new tech. And what's really exciting is that this is
still a very nascent space. Ten years ago, Like Rudy said,
most of these approaches weren't even on the table. The
roadmap shows just how big this needs to get. We're
(25:24):
talking about scaling from less than one million tons per
year today to four orders of magnitude larger by twenty fifty.
That's just an enormous industrial transformation, which means challenge, but
it also means opportunity for those who want to jump in.
So yes, government support matters and policies matter, but the
roadmap is meant to be a flexible tool, one that
can help guide actions even when the political wind shift.
(25:45):
And in the meantime, we're seeing growing interest from investors,
from startups, from corporates, and even regional and other governments
who see this as a new economic opportunity, not just
a climate obligation.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Interesting, so you mentioned, of course the idea that you know,
this isn't a roadmap that is US focus. It's a
global roadmap, and I do want to come back to
that point in a bit, but maybe before we do,
keeping the focus a little bit on the US. As
many of us know, in the US, we currently have
the forty five Q tax credit, which currently provides a
(26:19):
credit of between sixty dollars and one hundred and eighty
dollars per metric tone captured, with the higher values obviously
going towards technologies that provide permanent storage. I'm wondering if
you can talk us through other current or potential incentives
that may be available for scaling greenhouse gas removal.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
Yeah, glad to add a couple here.
Speaker 4 (26:43):
I mean, I think forty five Q is certainly a
very important policy signal, right, and I think it's one
that there's a lot of awareness about in the CDR space.
One of the things that actually is quite high on
people's radar from a policy perspective is that forty five
Q and maybe some of your listeners aware of this,
(27:04):
it only applies to direct air capture, right, And there's
a lot of other approaches in our roadmap and a
lot of other approaches to technological GHDR that actually do
not qualify for it simply because they aren't using machines
essentially to extract CO two from the air. So forty
five Q is important, and it's an important you know,
lever and again a policy signal for you know, the
(27:26):
role that CDR can play. But it's it was by
no means, you know, even from the beginning, sort of
an end all, be all kind of policy. So that said,
it is an important one, and it's an important one
for the signal that it sends. There are other really
important signals and policies and incentives related to GHDR. So
another one is just direct procurement. Microsoft is currently just
(27:51):
far and away a leader on supporting CDR through direct procurement.
They have several really good white papers about this.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Their goal is to.
Speaker 4 (28:01):
I believe, remove all of their ongoing emissions, but also
retroactively remove their past emissions, which is an incredibly ambitious goal.
Other tech leaders are also working in this space. Google
has also initiated some direct procurement. They've collaborated that with
some of the actions that the Department of Energy has
(28:22):
taken on its pilot direct procurement program. So that's another
way of I think you incentivizing or pushing forward GHDR.
Some of the companies that we work with take a
third approach, which we call in setting, and there's obviously
many ways to do in setting besides just in carbon removal.
But there are certain industries, and mining is a good
(28:43):
example of this where some changes to the internal processes
of the organization or of the company can actually result
in removals.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Right.
Speaker 4 (28:54):
So, mining companies are already working with a lot of
alkalin minerals and based on some of the activities they
take on site, they can actually do removals on site
by tweaking some of their processes. So you know, there's
many ways even beyond just policy to support the industry.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
Another really promising approach we highlight in the roadmap is
the use of advanced market commitments or AMCs. So these
are essentially commitments from buyers which provide a signal and
give early stage companies the financial confidence to develop and deploy.
So there are delayed payment AMC's where the buyer is
committed once the technology price has gotten down to a
certain point. There are other types, like upfront payment AMC's
(29:32):
that provide amedia capital and require trust that the company
will deliver. One of the most well known examples is Frontier,
the private sector coalition backed by companies like Stripe and
Alphabet and Shopify, which is committed to buying one billion
dollars in removals by twenty thirty. We're also starting to
talk about public sector AMCs in this removal space. Similar
(29:54):
to how vaccine development was incentivized through initiatives like GAVI,
the Vaccine Alliance so GAVE helped coordinate advanced purchase commitments
from governments and donors, which in turn gave vaccine manufacturers
the confidence to scale up R and D and production
before the products were fully developed. So in the GHDR
roadmap we talk about this as part of creating demand
(30:16):
demand pull for the technology, especially in the twenty twenties
when costs are still high in technologies aren't all proven
at scale. So the key takeaway is by stacking these
incentives public and private early in late stage, we can
de risk this space and help bring this technology to
market faster.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
That's super interesting. The idea of demand poll, I think
is really important because, of course, one of the challenges
that we often hear when discussing this is, unlike maybe
carbon credits in the regional greenhouse gas initiative or the EUETS,
where credits are ultimately designed to become more expensive over time,
(30:53):
it's our hope, of course, that the price of a
removal ton becomes cheaper over time. That idea of demand
pol is really important.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
So are there.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
Regions outside of the US where ultimately, either current or
emerging policy is more favorable towards greenhouse gast removal?
Speaker 4 (31:13):
Yeah, I mean, no doubt the US is a global
leader in GHDR, but I'd say, you know, there are
other regions around the world that are stepping up and
increasingly getting active in the space. So we have been
working a bit with some different organizations in Canada that
are interested in scaling up GHDR specifically CDR or we
(31:35):
have a couple of organizations that we're in touch with
in China and India that are looking at CDR. Japan
also has some new industries emerging around CDR. One of
the interesting things to note about this, of course, is
that with all of these different technological GHDR solutions, different
solutions are going to be better suited to different geographies,
(31:58):
right and different geology if it's you know, working on
some kind of rock CDR for example. So there are
some countries that have you know, really good resources of
let's say, low carbon energy, and so it's easy for
them to deploy direct air capture, which requires a lot
of that right no other regions. India is a good
example the activities there. They don't have a lot of
(32:20):
excess low carbon energy, but biochar actually turns out to
be something that there's a lot of excitement about there
and the role that it could play, so different regions.
You know, I think it's it's reasonable to expect that
different regions would focus on different specific approaches and incubate
those accordingly.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
That makes great sense. So obviously you know there there
are those out there who who may be less you know,
favorable towards greenhouse cast removal. I think one of the
arguments that we hear from that side is the idea
of kind of moral hazard, which is basically suggesting, of course,
that if we develop these technologies, then ultimately, you know,
(33:00):
people or industries, companies, et cetera, will feel like they
don't need to reduce emissions as much because we have
the ability to remove those emissions. Do you think there's
any validity to this argument?
Speaker 4 (33:13):
Yeah, this is a really important question, and Eric, I
mean I almost wish you would have asked it to
us first, right because I think it's it's just so
important for framing the role that GHDR should play in
a climate aligned future. If this is the kind of
thing that you know your listeners are interested in, So
just as like a touch point here of like putting
some numbers on it. We're currently emitting forty gigatons a
(33:36):
year roughly through anthropogenic emissions, and depending on what scenarios
you look at, that could be increasing to sixty or
even eighty gigatons a year. And if we're telling you
that if we max everything out and things go great
and we can do ten gigatons of removals, right, the
math does not add up. There's not enough removals to
take care of things if we don't reduce. And so
I think the key message is to say we must reduce,
(33:59):
but we also have to have this removal component. And
you know, just to kind of put that in context
with the sort of bathtub analogy which probably many of
your listeners have heard, right, It's like, if we're filling
up the bathtub with CO two and removals are one
way to drain that bathtub, we have to turn off
the tap before you know, we think that the draining
(34:21):
is really going to help us get to where we
need to go.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Absolutely, you know, I love that analogy.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
It's just a really important question and one that comes
up often when we're talking about removals. So all kind
of echo Rudy that the reality is that emissions reductions
alone are just no longer enough. According to the IPCC,
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, even with aggressive emissions cuts,
removals are unavoidable, which I translate into we need removals
(34:47):
in order to avoid the worst impacts to people on
the planet. And importantly, I think what we're all saying
is this is not a substitution for emissions cuts, it's
a compliment. The Bezos Earth Fund continues to emphasize that
the only viable path forward is to do both. We
need to reduce emissions as fast as possible, and we're
supporting that path and build the capacity to remove greenhouse gases. So,
(35:09):
rather than being a moral hazard, I kind of see
the need for removals as a reflection of the urgency
and scale of the challenge we face. If anything, it
underscores how far behind we are and how much more
we need to do on all fronts.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
Absolutely so, maybe, as the last question, curious to hear
from both of you, what's next from the Bezos Earth
Fund and r am I on the greenhouse gas removal topic.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
This is just the beginning. At the Bezos Earth Fund,
we see technological greenhouse gas removals as an area of
major importance. It's a relatively new space, but one with
huge potential not just for climate impact, but also for
industry creation and scientific advancement, entrepreneurship and innovation and economic opportunity. So,
together with others already in this space like r AM,
(35:51):
I we're thinking about how to translate this roadmap into action,
identifying what's urgently needed now and what's going to take
decades to mature but needs to get started. Meet. Internally
at the Earth Fund, I'm working on what our next
steps will be with others, including my partner on this,
Kelly Levin, who's our chief of Science, Data and Systems Change.
Our early exploration of the space at the Earth Fund
(36:12):
included an ideation prize, and you listeners can follow along
with the prize projects we're supporting online. We also hosted
an expert workshop last year together with US Department of
Energy and Stanford University, which some of the listeners might
have taken part in, and which led us to this.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
Roadmap with RMI.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
I also want to take a moment to acknowledge the researchers, entrepreneurs, policymakers,
advocates and funders who have been working on removals long
before it was getting mainstream attention and even before the
basis Earth Fund was on the stage. Here, this roadmap
builds on years of that foundational work by so many
and we're just deeply grateful for that. But the circle
is widening and the future is going to be driven
(36:50):
in conjunction with new voices and new partnerships and new
funding and bold action across research, industry, philanthropy and government.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
So let's do this.
Speaker 4 (37:00):
Yeah, And I'll just add, you know, for our omis part,
we're you know, very excited to be a part of
this roadmap effort with the besis Or Fund, and you know,
are really excited for all that they're doing to advance
the space UH and and work on these issues for us.
A lot of what our team and what our institute
focuses on is understanding energy broadly, but also advancing from
(37:25):
a technological perspective some of these uh these new emerging solutions.
So it's something we continue to work on.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
You know.
Speaker 4 (37:33):
One of the things one of the ways that we
look at doing that is not just writing roadmaps, but
thinking about how we can actualize some of the findings.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
Of the roadmaps in the real world.
Speaker 4 (37:42):
So our team is working on first projects and deployments
UH and assisting a number of different stakeholders in deploying
GHDR projects in the real world some of this.
Speaker 2 (37:56):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (37:57):
One of the ones that I'm particularly excited that our
team is working on is industrial integration, which I mentioned earlier, right,
so working with industries that already have scale and helping
them integrate carbon removal technologies into their processes. And then
another really big one that our team has identified as
something that is both needed and that we think we
(38:18):
can move the need along is demand for CDR right,
and so you know, one of the things just looking
out into the future is we really need to unlock
demand at scale if this industry is going to take off.
We think it's possible, but that's something we're really focused.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
On absolutely now. That makes great sense. And Noel, going
back to here comment, I like the idea of closing
with the idea of the circle widening. So with that,
Noel Rudy, thank you so much for taking the time
to join us. So, as always, you can find more
information on all things ESG by going to our dashboard
bispace ESG, go on the Bloomberg terminal, and if you
(38:53):
have an ESG quandry or burning question you'd like to
ask bi's expert analysts, send us an email at ESG
rants at Bloomberg dot net. Thank you very much and
we'll see you next time.
Host
Eric Kane
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