The world’s annual climate summit, COP28, has wrapped up in Dubai. As usual, the massive gathering will end without an all-encompassing deal to fix the climate, but with many new side deals, pledges, and announcements that are very relevant to our climate future.
Boosters and critics alike will all find lots of fodder from the past few weeks, and for better or worse carbon removal played a role in the deliberations.
On this episode, our policy panel reflects on the role CDR played at COP, and catch up on some other major industry news as we wrap up 2023 including-
-The COP deal to “transition from fossil fuels”
-Why the Article 6.4 rules on offsets were postponed
-Which countries committed to going “carbon-negative” at COP28
-Record climate capital deployed all over the world
-“Carbon Removals at COP” coalition
-Frontier’s record CDR purchase from Lithos
-The Road to Removals report
-& the panels highlights of 2023 and what they hope to see in CDR in 2024
On This Episode
Resources
‘Unabated’ fossil fuel debate
Holly’s book “Ending Fossil Fuels”
Frontier’s purchase from Lithos
RMI’s new CDR innovation report
Subscribe to Climate Workers Anonymous
My other show, Reversing Climate Change
Books referenced in the podcasts, at Bookshop
Full Transcript
Announcer: You’re listening to Carbon Removal Newsroom, a weekly show about current events in the world of carbon removal, from technology and innovation to policymaking and job growth. Brought to you by Nori, the carbon removal marketplace.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Welcome to the December 19th edition of Carbon Removal Newsroom, the final episode of 2023. As we speak, COP28 has just wrapped up in Dubai. As usual, the massive gathering will end without an all-encompassing deal to fix the climate, but with many new side deals, pledges, and announcements, things that are relevant to our climate future. For the first time, the world agreed to transition away from fossil fuels, though the deal is short on specifics, of course. Boosters and critics alike will all find fodder from the past few weeks, and for better or worse, carbon removal played a role in the deliberations.
To end the year, we’ll talk with our policy panel about the reflections on CDR at COP and catch up on industry news. So welcome, Holly Buck, Assistant Professor of Environment and Sustainability at the University at Buffalo. Hi, Holly.
Holly Jean Buck: Hello, how are you?
Radhika Moolgavkar: I am doing well, excited for the last episode of the season. And Wil Burns, very formally dressed today. Co-executive director of the Institute for Carbon Removal Law and Policy at American University. Hey, Will.
Wil Burns: Hey, how you doing?
Radhika Moolgavkar: You know... Hanging in there, hanging in there. Let’s start, just jump in and start talking about cops. So Holly, we’ve talked about the book you wrote about, I think, is it a year or so ago, Ending Fossil Fuels. Now that conversation is really happening on the world stage, what do you make of the deal that was made to eventually transition from fossil fuels or is deal too strong of a word even?
Holly Jean Buck: I mean, Will can weigh in on the appropriateness of that word. I think I am mildly optimistic just because when I was writing that book, most of it was written in 2020. And so like the core observation of the book is that this whole talk about net zero allows us to talk about emissions without confronting production. And I really thought it would take like five to seven years, maybe 10 for that kind of global discussion to really Tackle this issue of fossil fuel production, but it only took three years. So things can happen quickly.
I don’t really have a firm take on this language of transition away from fossil fuels versus phase out. I think that, you know, people understand the main point. I am disappointed about the language about the zero and low emission technologies and how convoluted it was, but that’s a minor point. I think we had, you know, one more step.
Radhika Moolgavkar: So Will or Holly, whomever or both of you, why do you think there was such a rapid, you know, Holly said 10 years, how did it happen in three years? What was the pressure at points that allowed this to happen?
Wil Burns: Yeah. I mean, I think people are facing reality, right? Warmest year ever, right? Maybe at highest level of concentration of CO2 in 14 million years, that does start to concentrate. And then the cynical side of me, right, because you know there’s always going to be that, says, again, is how I’m going to do that. Holly has pointed out this language is pretty precatory, right? Moving away in an equitable and orderly fashion, right? It can mean all things to all people, right? So they didn’t give away that much with it. But, you know, it does provide a further foundation for NGOs and others to provide a pressure point on policymakers to start to make this happen.
So I think it’s, on balance, a salutary thing.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Holly, do you have any other thoughts about the three-year time frame?
Holly Jean Buck: Yeah, I mean, well, one possibility is that I was just too cynical before and I wasn’t reading the room right. But I do think we had, you know, this march this year that was the march to end fossil fuels, right? Like five years ago, that might have been called the march for climate justice. And now the focus is more directly on the ending fossil fuels part and just in the climate movement more generally. And I do think that’s made A difference. But what we need to do now is figure out, OK, what does it really mean to end fossil fuels?
What are the roadmaps that are place specific for doing that?
Radhika Moolgavkar: Yeah. So, Will, I’m going to turn to you now about there were those who are arguing for the inclusion of unabated fossil fuels, which were talking about massively scaling up CCUS and carbon removal. So what does it mean to the CDR industry to be referred to like this by the world’s Petro states and biggest emitters. I mean, it’s a conversation we keep having, how we kind of get convoluted within that CCUS, CDR framework.
Wil Burns: Yeah. I mean, it’s certainly, I don’t think, helpful for the carbon removal industry to get lumped in with the petro states or petro industries, right? Because the petro industry, including our friends at Occidental, have already said they see this as As a potential license to let the good times continue to roll. Right. And so that message really exercises the environmental justice community who sees all the co-negative pollutants that are disproportionately affecting them potentially. You know, staying around for a lot longer as a consequence of, of being able to meet these targets with, you know, technologies like CDR or CCS and the moral hazard folks really are concerned.
That ultimately, a lot of these technologies will not come to fruition. We won’t meet the goals and we’ll be that much deeper in the hole, right? And there was an announcement last week by the Scottish government that kind of Reinforces this where they said, we’re going to scale back our 2030 emissions reduction targets because our predictions of scale up of CCS have turned out to be too optimistic, right? And that’s a cautionary And so I get why people are concerned about that. I mean, to its credit, I think the CDR industry is continuing to emphasize the need to wring out all possible emissions reductions.
And view CDR purely as supplementary, talking about, you know, dual parallel sort of mandates. But that can get lost in the miasma of these negotiations. And it’s not anything that the petrostates, I think, embrace. And so it’s an uneasy dance, I think. The CDR industry, right, is increasingly looking at opportunities to perhaps... Be purchased by these companies. We’ve already had a big direct air capture company that’s gone that route. But with that comes all of the potential stigma of being associated with that industry.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Yeah. And Holly, this is for you as the sociologist, and we’ve talked about it before, but one thing I really struggle with is like this very broad negative connotation For petro states, which may be appropriate, but the idea that you can just transition to net zero overnight seems like it’s its own societal justice issue that gets overlooked. So how do you reconcile that in your own head or do you? Is it just a natural tension we have to hold? Because forcing people to electric vehicles is not necessarily going to solve the issue.
And people seem to simplify it to that kind of thing.
Holly Jean Buck: Yeah, I was doing focus groups last night with just kind of members of the public and they did bring up these concerns about the timeline, you know, about the electric vehicles and how unaffordable they felt to everybody in the room, these kinds of things. And it just shows that we need to invest a lot more in communication that goes two way, that is also listening to what people are saying, understanding better. Their specific challenges that they face with this transition and doing a better job with both developing and articulating policies that address what they’re talking about.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Yeah, I agree. And it just feels like sometimes people want to make these huge blanket statements and the nuance really does matter. But we will change to a different topic at this point because we can go on and on about nuance, or I can at least. So, Will, the rule changes to Article 6. 4 were not approved at this year’s of rent and were postponed until next year’s COP. What happened? I mean, that’s all I could ask.
Wil Burns: Yeah. You know, I guess if I were in the CDR industry, it’s kind of a good news, bad news story, right? I think what happened is there’s a lot of methodological considerations for everything beyond carbon removal that really still haven’t been resolved. So I’m not that surprised. At the same time, if I were a CDR industry person, I view this favorably because, as we know, the 6. 4 report that we got a few months ago was bad in many ways, right? It said nature-based, sustainable per se, almost. Everything, quote-unquote, industrial, non-sustainable per se.
And that’s just not a realistic view of the world. The Carbon Business Council, Direct Air Capture Coalition and others kind of intervene to help educate that community, but it’s not there yet, right? And so I think given another year, first of all, hopefully development of some more sophisticated sort of methodologies for MRV of some of these things will help and further demonstration of how industrial approaches can be sustainably deployed in Will there be future opportunities through 2024 to continue to advocate on behalf of this, or is it sort of a closed session and now they’ll just bring it back next year?
There’ll be some formal and informal processes to do so. A lot of what happens in terms of this group is really done behind the scenes, and there’ll be a lot of forum to potentially talk and educate about this. So I think we may see some further evolution in terms of their understanding of carbon removal, which It’s a nascent industry, and so those that are working on these methodologies and don’t spend a lot of time in the carbon bubble are just learning about them also.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Holly, final question related to this topic. Will brought up the idea of Scotland is Going backwards in terms of their pledges, but there’s a small group of countries that have pledged to go carbon neutral negative, actually, and use carbon removal to sequester more carbon dioxide than they emit. So what do you think about the fact that Denmark and Finland, who are obviously, you know, wealthy countries, are willing to undo carbon dioxide?
Holly Jean Buck: Yeah, so apparently this group of negative emitters was launched by Denmark, Finland, and Panama. So my feeling is that this is a good thing for carbon removal in that it puts more focus on this goal of getting net negative. But we have to be wary of countries or even states within the US that have a lot of forests that are going to be like, yay, we are now negative and it’s easier for them. Also, these countries don’t really have that many emissions. So I’m not sure from a climate standpoint, it makes a huge difference whether they’re net zero or net negatives.
But it’s a nice discursive goal and I commend them on it, I guess.
Radhika Moolgavkar: But you’re kind of making the point, just to clarify for me, that one of the reasons they can do it is they are still heavily forested and they can just use the forest for carbon removal. But other countries may be disadvantaged. You don’t have that same geography.
Holly Jean Buck: I think it’s different for Denmark, which I’m not sure how forested they are, but I think they really are thinking more about, you know, investing in CCE. CCS and CDR, geologic storage anyway. Finland is probably more on the forested side. Panama definitely is. I think that they’ve already reached their goal given their forests. And, you know, this is why it’s important to have these net zero targets, but also like a percentage goal, like 90% by whatever year. It’s a compliment that to kind of avoid this forest advantage.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Got it. Thank you for the clarification. So a follow-up question sort of related to COP28. But, you know, while much has been talked about what didn’t work at COP28, there has been a record amount of capital deployment that was announced in the first few days of the event, $57 billion. So do you think this event remains important to stimulate climate tech industries like CDR, even if the actual policy piece of it is not maybe as important anymore? Do we still need this forum in the way it sort of developed, has developed, Holly?
Holly Jean Buck: So I think COP is this moment in the attention economy, and it’s become part of this yearly rhythm where people pay attention to climate. So I don’t know if it’s really stimulating these industries because people just like to announce things at COP so they have something to say. So you don’t really know what they would have done otherwise. Maybe they would have announced their investment in October or January and they’re just like all putting it at COP for the moment. So I would say I’m skeptical of making this into a big festival or carnival.
And I would like to probably see it just go back to being a diplomatic thing.
Radhika Moolgavkar: It does feel a little bit like a festival or carnival. One person I know was like, anybody, I applaud anybody from the CDR industry who did not go to COP because we should not be flying around the world for these events. Will shaking his head in agreement. So, but it was not Will who said it to me. All right. Final question on the broad topic of COP, you know, and this is for both of you. I’ll start with Will. A coalition of organizations hosted carbon removals at COP to bring together the CDR ecosystem at COP28.
What is the significance of having an organized presence of the carbon removal industry at COP specifically? And, you know, what do you hope to see them advocate for as we go into 2024? Will, we’ll start with you.
Wil Burns: Well, you know, as somebody who researches and teaches this stuff from a purely selfish standpoint, I’m glad that there’s somebody there to curate the huge number of new studies and side events that happens. So that it’s easy to work through. I think for the delegates at the event, it can be important because it emphasizes the role that carbon rubble is going to have to play in climate policymaking. And I think a lot of them still don’t understand that, right? I really believe that emissions reduction is the only game, and it’s important to understand that carbon removal is going to have to be incorporated into policy, not just Article 6, but long-term goals and the global stock tax.
Holly?
Holly Jean Buck: An organized presence keeps all of these disparate activities in one basket, which keeps the goal on carbon removal globally and also reaching net negative because otherwise you might just have advocacy for particular techniques and some of them would be more successful than others. And we might not get this whole portfolio. I’m happy to see this evolve. I think what I’d like to see is the field establish better norms and practices around data sharing because everybody’s learning by doing, but if they’re not always sharing that widely, we risk wasting both investment dollars and time, which is the one thing we don’t have.
So I hope if they continue to work together, they can work together around that as well.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Yeah, that’s a whole interesting topic because, you know, There’s always the IP issues and all these other, you know, and the financing and the competitive advantage. And I certainly agree with you in theory, Holly, but how that works in reality is interesting to see the development happening within the CDR industry. A conversation for another day, though. So let’s just focus kind of on industry news to end the year and end this show. You know, as all eyes were kind of on Dubai, several other headlines were happening this month and indicated that while the world may not be meeting climate goals, CDR progress and the CDR industry continues to grow.
So big news from Frontier, who always seems to have big news, that they made their largest purchase yet buying $57 million worth of credits For enhanced rock weathering from a company called Lithos, this would be the largest amount ever delivered by a novel method like enhanced rock weathering. And so, Will, what do you make of this news? And help me understand the MRV around this if you do, if you understand it, because I’m struggling with that piece.
Wil Burns: Yeah. Well, you probably should be. Yeah. So, you know, I think, again, this is a good news, maybe not so good news story, right? I think the good news is I firmly believe that there are big headwinds that are developed. We’re developing for CDR approaches that require conveyance of CO2 and storage of CO2, right? We’ve seen no less than three CO2 pipeline projects in the Midwest either scuppered Or Delayed, one in Illinois and then Navigator and Summit. And we’re probably gonna see more of that. I think the movement is growing and strengthening, right?
And so that’s gonna create some major problems for BEX, maybe DAX and so forth. And we may not get what we think we’re gonna get from it, right? So that portfolio approach becomes even more important. Class 6 wells, there’s a backlog of about 200 permits for class 6 wells. There’s efforts to get states to be able to authorize these, but those are slow also. That’s going to slow things down. My guess is we’re gonna see a lot more numby, not under my backyard. Movements grow when we start talking about storage of gigatonnes of CO2, right?
So anything that we can develop that allows us Right. Right. Right. Right. So I think that’s really good. But what you hit upon is the big elephant in the room, which is MRV. The MRV approach that Frontier has embraced It’s relatively easy to measure weathering. It’s much more difficult to measure the amount of CO2 that’s ultimately being sequestered. And there’s a lot of people questioning if the proxy measures that they’re using are going to be able to accurately measure CO2, especially under different conditions, different crops, different climatic conditions, and so forth.
And a really potent example of that is there was a study that was released on the carbon drain. Drawdown Initiative website this week by Dirk Paisler and some other researchers, and they’re trying to use alkalinity and leachate as a proxy measure for carbon sequestration. And what they ultimately concluded, this was lab-based research, was kind of a cautionary tale. First of all, they said the measurements indicates, quote unquote, substantial variability in weathering rates influenced by different soil and rock types. And that this unexpectedly large variability underscores the complexity inherent in reliably measuring enhanced rock weathering CDR effect, which is likely not fully represented by today’s models.
They said there’s a compelling need for real world testing of this and that’s gonna be expensive and it’s gonna take a while. And they concluded that ultimately that complexity and variability probably means that this proxy measure may not totally turn out to be the most appropriate, right? And so there’s going to be a need for a lot more research in this context, right? And, you know, this was the conclusion of the 6. 4 committee under Paris too, which was ERW was not ready for prime time because of MRV. So I...
And I’m not certain that Frontier didn’t jump the gun in this context. To their credit, one of the things they’re going to require as this project proceeds is even more stringent sort of proof of concept. And so maybe down the road we’ll be able to prove this. But I have questions about this at this point.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Yeah, not to mention just the idea of dumping a bunch of minerals into a biological system. Three or four or five times what is ever seen on the earth. Like that also gives me pause because have we not learned that messing with biological systems have unintended consequences always. But let’s move on to something more positive. Will, thank you for helping me make sure that my logic on MRB was not totally unfounded. Holly, the Road to Report Removals Report generated a lot of excitement, and I have to say it is a very comprehensive and impressive report.
So can you tell us a little bit about it? How did it come about and, you know, some maybe high-level things we should be aware of about the report?
Holly Jean Buck: Yeah, so this is really exciting. So this is a national steel analysis of carbon removal, and it looks at the feasibility, the capacity, the impacts, the costs of CDR. And it’s spatially explicit. So it has regionally specific opportunities, analysis for every state, a whole bunch of data that you can download. And it’s led by Lawrence Livermore National Labs, but it involves 68 researchers at 13 academic institutions. Because you can imagine they’re looking at so many different techniques. They’re looking at soils and bikers and direct air capture and forests. And also there’s an analysis of Environmental and energy justice implications as well.
And basically they’re like, you know, will it be feasible to meet these large goals? And they did find that the U. S. can remove at least a billion pounds of CO2 per year by 2050.
Radhika Moolgavkar: And that it would create more than 440,000 Yeah, that report and the new report from RMI about just different types of carbon removal and their taxonomy around it are both really good things for people in the carbon removal industry reports for people in the carbon removal industry to review and They’re in-depth and comprehensive and will drop, I think, both in the show notes, but really cool work that’s come out of these both from both Lawrence Livermore and RMI recently and very helpful to help organize and think through these issues. So Holly, another question for you real quickly is you are currently at the Advancing Earth and Space Sciences meeting, which is the largest annual gathering of geoscientists in the country.
So who knew? While climate science is now front and center on the world stage, you know, the climate situation, obviously, as you alluded to earlier, is time is of the essence. So what is the mood at the event you’re at? And do you have any takeaways from it that you want to share with us?
Holly Jean Buck: Yeah, I mean, climate change is definitely central. So it’s a little bit hard to gauge the mood of this conference. It’s the American Geophysical Union, and it’s about 25,000 scientists all sharing their work. You know, the core of the earth, the surface of the earth, space, it’s all in there. But I will say that there’s definitely more discussions of carbon removal than I’ve seen ever before in previous years. And it’s really inspiring because there’s so many PhD students that show up with their posters and they’re asking just really good questions about a whole variety of carbon removal techniques.
Another notable thing this year is AGU is in this process of developing an ethical framework on climate intervention. Which for them includes both carbon removal and solar geoengineering. And so you really see this community of scientists grappling with what its role should be at this moment. You know, they don’t just want to be in this poster hall with their posters. They’re really thinking about the responsibility to act with these really challenging topics. So yeah, nothing, you know, totally new, but all very exciting.
Wil Burns: Yeah, I’d give a shout out to AGU too, because they’re going to do, at their Ocean Science-based meeting in February, I’m speaking on a panel on MRV for marine CDR, right? So they’re really focused on this and trying to bring in scientists from the next couple of concentric circles beyond the carbon removal scientists to help us, you know, tease out what’s necessary in this field. So it’s great.
Radhika Moolgavkar: All right. Well, final question of 2023 in Carbon Removal Newsroom. Can you both share with us one highlight from the world of carbon removal you are excited about from 23 and something that you are looking forward to seeing in 2024? Will, you’re not muted, so I will start with you.
Wil Burns: Well, you know, as a lawyer, my shout out has to be to something legal, right? You know my old bang on the drum. I don’t think we can ever conceivably get to the level of carbon removal we need through the voluntary markets. And so the compliance markets are going to be critical to drive us to scale. That’s just where I think we are. And for a long time, I was frustrated that in the Paris process, there was virtually no focus on carbon removal. And I think the Paris process can drive A large amount of potential demand in this context.
And so that’s all changing, right? As you mentioned, 6. 4 didn’t get past the finish line, but they’ll get there and car removal is part of that. And there could be a large number of projects that could be driven and justified under 6. 4 that wouldn’t otherwise come to fruition. So I think that’s positive. It, for the first time, includes the role of carbon removal, right? Fairly vague. That’s to be expected. There’s baby steps. But the Paris Agreement is, I think, catching up with the IPCC in acknowledging that we need both Hyper aggressive decarbonization and carbon removal.
And so I think that’s really important. And so moving forward, just paralleling that, what I think is necessary in the future is to ensure that carbon removal And that we don’t create this weird distinction that all nature-based is sustainable under all circumstances, because it’s not. If you plant massive amounts of trees in certain areas and wipe out savannas and prairie grasslands and expel indigenous people from the land, that’s not sustainable. And at the same time, Some of the industrial approaches can be done sustainably if we’re careful, right? And so hopefully that will happen.
And in the global stock take, instead of just saying, yeah, we’re going to need carbon removal, we need to start establishing timelines and benchmarks for adoption of carbon removal so that we don’t start in 2049 and believe we’re going to get where we need to be in terms of the NDCs.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Well, are you looking for some nuance rather than a blunt instrument? That’s what I’m hearing.
Wil Burns: That’s what you’re, that’s all we seek as professors.
Radhika Moolgavkar: And Holly, last word for you about on Carbon Removal Newsroom 2023.
Holly Jean Buck: Yeah, I mean, I have to say, you know, as somebody who loves public funding for this, congratulations to the Department of Energy for this. Getting a lot of funding opportunity announcements out and making selections. You know, we might not always agree on all of the selections or whatever, but it’s just been a tremendous amount of work from our civil servants and happy to see it, excited to see more in 2024.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Right. Well, with that, Will, Holly, thank you as always for being part of the policy panel. I look forward to seeing your lovely faces in January. And until then, enjoy some time off.
Wil Burns: Thanks, everyone. Happy holidays.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Thanks.
Announcer: Happy 2024. Thanks so much for listening to Carbon Removal Newsroom. If you like the show, the best way you can help us is by giving us a great rating and review an Apple podcast, following the show on Spotify, and by sharing the show on social media. Tell your friends and help us spread the word about what’s happening in the world of carbon production.
