The CDR Policy Scoop

This gets to the core of the carbon market debate.

Reductions, including avoidance credits, currently account for over 95% of credits in the VCM. Meanwhile, removal credits are rapidly gaining momentum, with $6.5B in purchases to date, outpacing the growth of all other credit types.

In the Reductions corner, no less than Renat Heuberger, CEO at Terra Impact Ventures and Founder / former CEO at South Pole, who has been at the ...

One of the world's first regulations to fight corporate greenwashing is on the final stretch. Or is it?

The final trilogue, the negotiations between the three EU institutions, was pushed back to June 23rd but was ultimately cancelled. A push by the German government and the conservative EPP group in Parliament has led the policy process off the rails, with the European Commission considering withdrawing its proposal.

Critics ...

Should the VCM shape or follow government policy?

The Voluntary Carbon Market is at a crossroads as governments ramp up climate ambition and explore carbon markets.

What would a genuine alignment between VCM and government policy look like? What are the risks and opportunities? How can the VCM support both national and global net-zero goals? 

To help us dig into these questions and more, we’re thrilled to welcome a le...

The Paris Agreement's carbon markets could be worth up to $250 billion annually and reduce or remove gigatons of CO2.

But how do we operationalise it? How can countries start trading durable removals under the Paris Agreement’s Article 6.2 mechanism?

Norway and Switzerland have just agreed on the first durable removals transaction under this framework. For their pilots, planned to be executed pre-2030, they aim to transfer up...

A European CDR Purchasing Programme for Permanent Carbon Removal?

Sounds too good to be true? Well, it may become a reality soon.

On May 21st, the European Commission held a dedicated workshop on “A Purchasing Programme for CRCF Permanent Carbon Removal Credits”.

As stated in its own excellent pre-read, Europe will need to fund CDR with up to €6 billion by 2030 to achieve its indicative target of 5 Mt/year.

But where sh...

Many projects want to blend public funding with revenue from voluntary carbon markets as carbon removal scales up.

Meanwhile, governments have different approaches to it. And sceptics keep questioning whether it makes sense in the first place - what about additionality, corresponding adjustments, and real climate impact?

We’re excited to welcome Erik Rylander, the Head of CDR at Stockholm Exergi, to share his immense experien...

Against all odds, the Liberal Party just won the Canadian general elections. Mark Carney’s party explicitly campaigned to turn Canada into a global leader in carbon dioxide removal.

Canada plans to do so by - among other things - extending its investment tax credit to 2035, supporting a broad range of CDR tech, and introducing dedicated CDR targets for 2035 and 2040.

This all sounds incredibly promising. But will Canada be ab...

It's out: the European Commission published a consultation to gather feedback on what the world's largest emission trading system - the EU ETS - should look like after 2031.

For carbon removals, integration into the EU ETS represents one of the most promising paths to predictable demand at scale. Whether and how that will happen is still up for debate.

A unique opportunity to get involved with such a crucial legislative proce...

Are we scrubbing the smokestacks and skies of a waste gas, or creating a valuable resource for a net-zero world?

As carbon management technologies like CCS, CCU, DACCS, and BECCS advance, policymakers and markets are narrowing down on CO₂’s role.

In this CDR Policy Scoop, we dive into:

• What happens if we treat CO₂ only as waste?
• ⁠What is the real potential for CO₂ to be commoditized?
• ⁠How does this debate shape business mode...

How can the EU's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism help scale carbon dioxide removal?

Designed to put a price on imported carbon and prevent leakage, but could it also act as a catalyst for scaling CDR?

This CDR Scoop cuts through the noise to explore this critical link. We're digging deep to uncover the potential synergies and challenges.

To ensure we cover all angles, we're thrilled to welcome leading CBAM expert Dan Ma...

A fun, interactive, first-of-a-kind live debate with over 1000 attendees signed up.

We picked two real heavyweights: DAC, the poster-child of CDR, with over 200 DAC companies founded to date. On the other hand, biochar, responsible for a whopping 84% of all durable CDR deliveries to date.

In the DAC corner: Martin Freimüller is the Co-Founder and CEO of Octavia Carbon – the first DAC company in the Global South and fifth larg...

On March 31st, EU Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra floated various ideas for how Europe’s expected 90% emission reduction target for 2040 could be achieved.

One of them: letting EU countries purchase United Nations Article 6 credits to meet EU's 2040 climate target. Similar suggestions are currently being proposed by the upcoming German government.

This would require undoing a core principle of Europe’s Climate Law: only E...

8,000 companies have emission reduction targets validated by the Science Based Targets initiative. Only around 50 of them have so far purchased durable carbon removal.

Imagine if all of them purchased CDR? The impact could be >50Mt of demand. Per year. Starting from 2030.

On March 18th, the SBTi released the draft net-zero standard 2.0 which marks a potential inflection point. Will it:

• Drive companies to begin CDR purch...

Aviation is responsible for almost 1Gt of CO2 emissions, or 2.5% of global emissions. Up to 4% when accounting for non-CO2 climate warming effects. And demand is only going up: 3-4% year-on-year.

Aviation is also notoriously hard to decarbonise: most hope is placed on sustainable aviation fuels (SAF). Given there will always be considerable residual emissions (ICAO: 200Mt-950Mt in 2050), carbon removal is central to aviation’s n...

Will the EU need 2x as much CDR?

The highly anticipated 333-page milestone report on carbon removal by Europe's Scientific Advisory Board has landed, promising to be the most comprehensive analysis of CDR to date. 

Does this heavyweight report deliver the strategic guidance needed to shape effective EU CDR policy? What other crucial insights does it offer – and more importantly, what might it have missed?

Eve and Seba...

In February 2025, all probationary contract staff at the Department of Energy were terminated, including the most incredibly talented and experienced people who had turned the U.S. into a CDR powerhouse over the previous years.

What does this - alongside the freezing of IRA and BIL funds - mean for CDR in the U.S. moving forward? How will DAC Hubs be affected? What about the Public Procurement Purchase Prize?

To make sense of...

Emission trading systems (ETS) are often touted as the largest potential source of demand for carbon dioxide removal (CDR), providing a large, predictable market worth billions. 

The EU ETS is by far the largest and most successful in the world, with its market size around 900 billion EUR and carbon price climbing over 80 EUR/t. 

2025 is the time when a lot of decisions to critical questions will need to be answered...

In carbon removal policy circles, three simple words - like-for-like - seem to come up more and more. It is a simple and obvious concept that is actually incredibly complex and misunderstood.

Robert Höglund joins Eve Tamme and Sebastian Manhart in exploring like-for-like as a concept, why it is becoming a core pillar of CDR policy design and what net-zero targets should actually look like.

Tune in to find out more

Links:

On January 28th, the European Commission hosted a long-awaited workshop on public funding for permanent CDR. Expectations were high - maybe too high?

What came out of it and what is lined up for funding of CDR in Europe? Both Eve (in person) and Sebastian (remote) attended, and are bringing you all the insights you need to know.

Tune in to find out more

Links:

• Eve Tamme: LinkedIn and Website
• Sebastian Manhart: Linked...