In recent months, we’ve covered CDR developments in the EU, followed CDR’s role in international climate agreements, and interviewed startups working to bring DAC to Kenya. There’s so much happening with CDR around the globe that it’s a challenge to cover all the news of carbon removal’s rise.
That’s why on this episode we’re fortunate to have Tom Mills and Shantanu Agarwal join us today to share their work scaling up CDR in India with a new consortium called Carbon Removal Alliance India (CRIA).
Tom is a co-founder of the organization, and Shantanu is a founder of Mati, an enhanced rock weathering startup in India that is a member of CRIA.
India has existing climate policies, immense amounts of working lands, a rising working-age population, and a wealth of business and science resources. Can these assets allow it to become a CDR powerhouse?
Our guests today will tell us about their work, what they think of India’s CDR potential, and what needs to happen within India to unlock carbon removal there.
On This Episode
Resources
Our Episodes on the EU & Kenya
Susteon & Sustaera- Shantanu’s previous companies
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: Hello, everybody, and welcome to the November 7th episode of Carbon Removal Newsroom. Today, I am joined with some folks from India. So first off, I have Tom Mills, co-founder of the Carbon Removal India Alliance. So nice for you to join us. Thank you so much.
Tom Mills: Great to be here. Thank you very much for having me on.
Radhika Moolgavkar: And then Shantanu Agarwal, founder at Maiti Carbon. Did I say that right?
Shantanu Agarwal: Maiti. Maiti Carbon.
Radhika Moolgavkar: And finally, I’m Radhika Moolgavkar, Head of Supply and Methodology here at NORI. So in recent months, we’ve covered a lot of CDR developments in the EU, followed CDR’s role in international climate agreements, and interviewed startups working to bring DAC to Kenya. And there’s so much happening with CDR around the globe that it’s a challenge to cover all the news of carbon removal’s rise. So that’s why we’re so happy to have both of you with us today to share their work of scaling up CDR in India with a new consortium called Carbon Removal India Alliance.
Tom is the co-founder and Shanthu is a founding member. So India has existing climate policy, immense amounts of working lands, a growing working age population, and a wealth of business and science resources. Those are the things we’re going to discuss today with my guests, and I will just jump in with them. So first off, a question I like to ask anyone who is in the CDR space is, how did you come to work on carbon removal? And I will start with you, Shantanu.
Shantanu Agarwal: Yeah, it’s an interesting story of how I did come into this because I originally started out on the exact opposite end of it. I’m a chemical engineer with training, graduated from YIT, and I started working in the oil and gas industry as my first career. And there I worked all across, say, Indonesia, China, Western Europe, and US, managing quite significant businesses and learning how to run businesses, but quite still not aware of climate change as I know about it today as an urgency and a threat to our way of life.
So I got to Harvard after my career in the oil and gas, and that’s what I really kind of understood and I sort of committed myself to work in climate change from there on. And I became an entrepreneur with a multi-commerce compressor business, which was more energy efficient. And then we became an investor in a venture capital firm, investing in energy tech and climate tech across North America. But around 2017, I was still quite disillusioned by the space at which we were making innovations and making climate tech become real. So I kind of went in the deep end and started an R&D shop called Sustion, which was doing CO2 removal and CO2 capture research.
We started with a few PhDs and kind of rammed up to about 15 PhDs, collaborating with all the different universities. And that’s where I really figured out what works and what doesn’t work. One of the technologies which came out of that became Sustera, which was a company I founded in the DAC domain, Director of Capture domain. And along with my co-founders, we were We raised some money and we were also winners of XPRIZE there. But the realization quickly dawned on me that needs a lot more energy and there are some significant faster ways to scale carbon removal before that could really reach that scale.
And enhanced weathering with its co-benefits and other things was really attractive. And that’s kind of been my life now for the last two and a half years or two years or so.
Radhika Moolgavkar: That’s a great journey. You’ve been all over the world and... Definitely been at some very interesting and elite institutions as well. Tom, what about you?
Tom Mills: Maybe a bit similar to Shantanu, but not necessarily at the same level. So I spent the majority of my career really working in the mining industry. First of all, working, developing projects, typically at the project site. And then I shifted over the Rubicon and started working as an advisor within government ministries around the world. So a lot in Africa and within Asia. And I’ve spent the last 10 years working in South Asia. And naturally I’ve been really focused on quantifying social and environmental impacts. But it was really a conversation with Benjamin Schutz, who’s a partner at Carbon Removal Partners, who had a lot of insight, a lot of passion about carbon dioxide removals.
And I began to realize that there was this real similarity between some elements of the mining sector and carbon dioxide removals. You know, they’re both around splitting, combining, moving molecules. It’s a very material focus. They’re about industry. They’re about production, which is fixed geographically, you know, depending on geology, agronomy, climate, social, environmental, and political issues, but then sold onto an international marketplace. So we’re going to have these really fascinating geoeconomic angles to the sector. And lastly, there was this potential for very large environmental and social impacts at the deployment of new technologies at scale, which we saw in the mining sector.
And I felt that there was some really far-down lessons in the mining industry. And I really wanted to bring that into the carbon dioxide removal sector. And so when I started researching the sector, I was sold, you know, and I was in. I found it absolutely fascinating and wanted to be part of it. So that’s my background.
Radhika Moolgavkar: All right. So then, Tom, why don’t you briefly describe, you know, the inspiration for the Carbon Removal India Alliance, its mission and its long-term vision?
Tom Mills: Sure. And I think what I’m going to start doing is just by placing Korea Carbon Removal India Alliance in a bit of context. So as we all know, climate change is a global phenomenon. But as the CDR sector develops, there are going to be countries where innovations develop so that the world’s finer economic land energy resources can most efficiently be used to durably capture and store carbon from the atmosphere at large, large scale. Countries where for a billion dollars, you can remove the greatest tonnage of carbon dioxide, but also by generating the greatest co-benefit.
And India has the potential to be this country. Big innovation to deploy CDR at massive scale at resource efficiencies. And when we see the research and development sector focus in India in one specific area, we see massive deployment. You know, I wish some of Europe had some of the innovations that India has around payment gateways. We’ve seen massive deployment of renewable energy. It’s a bit like the Eye of Solron descending on a specific sector and then just sort of quickly taking off. So, you know, as a Brit, that’s why I’m so heavily involved.
Invested and interested in investing my energy into the Indian CDR sector. So our mission is to act as a catalyst for the development of a thriving durable carbon removal sector scale, which generates jobs, investment and exports for India while improving climate resilience for some key sectors, namely the agricultural sector. And we focus on durable carbon removal approaches.
Radhika Moolgavkar: So just a couple of follow-up questions to that. When we were talking to the folks from Kenya, they mentioned that Kenya has a young, educated workforce. And I’m wondering if that also holds true of India, which I know, at least in my region, exports a whole bunch of engineering talent to the Pacific Northwest. And also... The Indian government, it’s not maybe the most forward-looking sometimes in some ways, and so curious what their approach is to climate change.
Tom Mills: I’m happy to answer both questions, but why don’t I talk a bit about the workforce? You know, we talk a bit about, in India, we talk about the demographic dividend. You know, we have 12 million young people coming into the workforce each year. You know, that’s a big demand challenge to create jobs for them. But also that’s a massive supply of talent. We have 1. 5 million engineers coming off production line each year. And there are only five countries in the world that produce more research and development, research papers in high quality journals than India.
You know, there’s a big groundswell of talent within the country. And I think if you put those characteristics together around... We’ll come on to talk about it in a bit, geology, climate, agronomy. With this great hub of innovation and groundswell and the third largest startup ecosystem in the world, you could end up with some very exciting things. And we want to be part of that, sort of capitalizing that.
Shantanu Agarwal: I would say, yes, from outside, it might look like that there is quite a strong control and managed type of government system which is going on in India. But I think in terms of what has been created and how much impact it has created, the GST system, the roads, the various economic programs which have been launched. There is a significant groundswell, as Tom mentioned, to really adopt new tanks. And even for the carbon markets, there has been a new policy which has been undertaken by the government. Yes, carbon removal is something which I would say It’s still being understood by the government, but carbon emission reductions and sort of basic nature-based carbon credits is something which the government is taking on quite sort of positively and putting policies in place to really get that.
And they committed to 2017 being net zero. So I think there’s definitely a big... Internal push in the government to really do something about being conscious and the sort of correct way of global citizen in the carbon removal and the climate economy of the world. And that is taking shape in the policy, but that is still early for India in general. And I completely agree with what Tom said around the whole educated masses which are coming to bear and the demographic dividend which India is getting. And how do we employ these masses if we don’t really tune them Right now into directions which will be climate positive.
What will happen is what exactly happened to China and what exactly happened to US when it was trying to do that. But their demographic dividend where the traditional industries will grow and they will take over jobs which will not be as climate sensitive because that’s what we know how to do. So if we don’t Actively invest into shaping India’s demographic dividend to go in the direction which helps the world’s climate goals. It’s going to go in a direction which does not help that. And that is the reason India is such an important kind of stakeholder in having us deliver our climate goals to the world.
Tom Mills: I think just building on what Shantanu said, it’s worth just placing this in context. So in India, The average consistent consumes around 1. 9 tonnes of carbon per person per year. You know, in Europe, depending on how you look at the imports of heavy industry, that’s between 6 and 11. In America, that’s around 14. 9. So we have this big delta between the consumption of carbon and also the use of the historical carbon budget. But I’m just going to come back to this thing around the eye of Sauron. India has a very, very large push on decarbonization energy efficiency at the moment.
So if we look back over the past five years, India’s deployed 63 gigawatts of renewable energy. You know, that’s almost the size of the UK grid. Like this is crazy. They have an aspiration. 2030 of deploying 500 gigawatts renewable energy, right? This is like, this is massive, massive scale. And also they’re on track to not only achieve, but exceed their NDC. So I think there is a challenge and that challenge is predominantly around coal and the energy usage, which will make some CDR pathways less relevant to India than others. But I also, at the same time, the country is moving very, very fast, but has a big challenge to decarbonize its energy system and at the same time is pulling a large amount of people out of poverty and achieving the same sort of lifestyle that others have from countries which have been historic emitters.
Radhika Moolgavkar: So I want to just pivot a little bit to you, Shantanu, to talk about your company. Can you describe a little bit about what it does? You alluded to it, but if you could give a bit more detail and how you’re working with the Carbon Removal India Alliance as a founding member.
Shantanu Agarwal: Yeah. So firstly, I’d like to thank Benjamin Schultz from Carbon Removal Partners, who really Got this whole CREA initiative put together and asked three, four guys in the room to really start something in that vein. So he’s definitely supposed to get that credit and really happy for him to make that happen for us. And we joined as one of the founding members And I think it’s really because it’s aligned to our core mission, which is around providing climate resilience to the very large population of the country, which is significantly climate vulnerable.
India is kind of a dual nation. There is a quite large 800 to a billion people who are in a third world country. And then there is probably 300, 400 million people who are Who are in a developing country, which is getting there. And then a very small 10%, five to 10% living in cities, which are almost equivalent to the West. So the 1 billion who are sitting in the back are really folks who need that climate resilience solutions to come to them now, because being in the tropics, India is really one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change.
And if we can create a solution To use carbon removal as a tool to provide climate resilience, funding, and sustenance, solutions to these vulnerable people, that would be really cool. I’m sure Nori has covered an answer for putting in the past, but just in a nutshell, it is a method which essentially takes silicate rocks, spreads it in agricultural fields. These silicate rocks react with the CO2 from air and make carbonates and bicarbonates. In the process, they also release a lot of micronutrients to the soils, which There’s two things. One is removing CO2 from air to make these carbonates and bicarbonates, which eventually end up in the ocean and are permanent for 10 plus thousand years.
And the second thing is they, because of these micronutrients released to the soil, they help with crop productivity and enhance overall crop productivity for, especially for these vulnerable farmers who don’t have access to fertilizers and are kind of rain dependent. When we add these materials to the soil, suddenly their crop productivity goes up by 10, 20%. And in some cases, 50%, 70%, which is really, really game-changing, light-changing for these people. And that’s what we’re trying to do, create safety nets for these people by providing them enhancement in crop productivity and giving them a portion of the carbon removal credits which we are generating.
So really, it’s creating a very nice way of transferring value from the global north, where most of our customers are, which are countries of the West, like Stripe, Shopify, H&M. And taking the money from there and deploying it in the hands of some of the most vulnerable people in the world in the form of cash and in the form of crop enhancement. And we do that in a model which is completely nonprofit. So we essentially, all the profits we generate go to the pharma benefit and your focus on stakeholder enhancement in that way.
So I think CREA, just coming back to the question on alignment with CREA, I think CREA is wanting to scale these kinds of solutions. And the potential of these kind of solutions in countries like India. And I think PRW in India is one of those very massively scalable and massively impactful pathway, which can help millions of people out of very suitable climate situation.
Radhika Moolgavkar: So I just want to make sure, you know, I’m clear. The one billion that you were saying live in a third world country, I assume most of those are in rural parts of India and are heavily dependent on agricultural countries. Revenue and lands?
Shantanu Agarwal: That is correct. I wouldn’t say all of them are in agriculture, but there is a significant portion of those are in agriculture. That is correct.
Radhika Moolgavkar: And by small, small hectare farms, right?
Shantanu Agarwal: Yes. Typical farmers who we work with are two acres, three acres, one acre farmers. Okay. So that’s what we’re working with right now. And that has its own challenges in working and adds to our costs, but that’s where the impact is.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Yeah. Last question for you on this topic. We have talked about ERW on this podcast before and how you’re navigating some of the modeling and measurement and verification pieces around ERW that are so early in the development cycle as a nonprofit working kind of in a rural community. How are you thinking about that challenge?
Shantanu Agarwal: Yeah, so our mother nonprofit, which is in the U. S. , essentially allows us to sort of have the core IP and the technology which we are generating mostly through our partnership in the U. S. So Yale University is one of our core partners and sort of developing that and they have been at the forefront of developing the ERW methodologies. And we have adapted quite significantly for us. And we have now got our own significant science team with seven, eight members in the science team developing and adapting the methods for India.
And yes, it’s still quite difficult and it’s in its early phase of developing for that. So we do need to be very adaptable and continue to create data sets which are very exhausted. So we are probably one of the only players in ERW who is doing Very high density sampling, probably the highest density sampling in the world, because we want to ensure that we have the heterogeneity of the world accounted for. And our models actually are coming up with ERW, which is based on actual field data rather than a sort of a simulated mesocosm or a simulated lab experiment.
So we are kind of doing that in the field and that is expensive. And again, something which needs to be done to build the confidence in the ERW methodology to prove That there are the co-benefits are there, but the removal also needs to be real. And that’s the reason we have research collaborations and our own models for the, first of all, the geotinistry of the soil, then the actual removal, which is the dissolution of the silicates. Then how does that alkalinity travel from the soil To the riverine network and from the riverine network to the ocean and we do all that modeling.
We’ve got a significant experience now in doing that and on top of that we sort of calculate the leakage factors and adjust the actual removal which is calculating based on the soil samples to reflect something which will be real. So we do quite a significant discounting of the removal which comes out. So that’s the method. And I think we’re still all learning. I wouldn’t say that the journey is over and we’ve got a finished product, which is now ERW is ready for just going out and deploying everywhere. It’s a very complicated system and methodology too.
It’s not just crushing rock and dumping it in the soil. It can actually backfire. So it needs to be done with care and needs to be done with very strong science. Behind it. And you need to actually build these models for each region which you’re deploying it in. So we are right now building a model for the region where we are in and anywhere else where we start, we start from ground zero, building a lot of data set to build a model which makes sense. So here Develo is still a journey.
I think once we have a million data set, maybe we’ll have a formulaic approach, but we’re still learning.
Radhika Moolgavkar: I appreciate how circumspect you are because I think that is reflective of where the industry is and where we need to go. So, Tom, I’m going to pull back a little bit again and look at India as a broad country and ask you, but can you describe a little bit about the startup environment in India and what you’re seeing and where you imagine India will play? What types of CDR will India be most impactful in, do you believe?
Tom Mills: Sure. So I think it’s fair to say that the CDR ecosystem in India is extremely nascent. However, it’s pregnant with opportunity. I think currently CDR credits from India constitute around 1. 4% of global sales. So it’s quite small. The bulk of which from a really innovative company, a founding member, Mash Makes, pioneering Biochar, a company that’s growing extremely rapidly in India. But there are some really exciting startups that are starting to deploy their technologies at Around India, you know, Malti, I hope Shantanu doesn’t mind me saying, but Malti was one of, was the only company in the global sales selected for frontiers.
Advanced purchase round in the past round, we have Takachar, which was the earth shop Prize winner, developing some really exciting solutions to distributed biochar development. Pyro CCS is already exporting its technology from India to other countries around the world, and they have an aim to have 550 plants in India by 2028. And then we have a raft of others, Everest Carbons, raising money for other Dutch carboneers, and looking at other solutions as well. It’s safe to say that we’re seeing the start of large scale investment in India and we have tens of millions So we are just at the start of this landscape and that’s going to rapidly ramp up over the next few years.
And just to answer your question around some of the pathways we’re seeing. I think it’s worth just saying that India is highly land and energy competitive. I know you’ve been talking about Kenya, Iceland, for example, where there will be a surplus of clean energy. The growth requirement with India means that the energy blends will remain for the foreseeable future with some coal component to them, which makes Direct air capture or other technologies that require large energy, quite challenging. However, if we look at some more bio-based approaches, say we take biochar, India has the largest heritage of croplands in the world, 165 million hectares of croplands in India.
And this generates the second largest quantity of surplus biomass in the world. And that biomass can be taken, used for BACs, used for biochar. And we’re looking at Really, really large scale usage. And, you know, if we combine that with the recent studies around permanence of biochar, which I know you recently did a podcast on, we can see that the biochar or the BEX pathway presents a real opportunity. And when we started to model this out, We’re talking about at a very conservative estimate, taking only half of the surplus biomass for our modeling, we’re looking at around 0.
4 gigatonnes per year, 400 million tonnes per year as we start to scale it up. And as we start to stack on other pathways on top of that ERW, a massive scale opportunity, I know Shantanu can talk to this far better than I can, but we’re starting to see big, big scale now. And with big, big scale comes reduction in costs as well. We’re really, really excited about this opportunity.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Obviously, I mean, maybe not obviously, but India has a huge coastline as well. So is there any ocean-based CDR being thought about or contemplated? Or are you mainly, it sounds like it’s really focused sort of on the soil open systems?
Shantanu Agarwal: I think I’ve seen a few people considering India, mostly the international. As Tom mentioned, the whole CDR space is quite nascent in India. There are only a few companies which are actually playing. And the rules are still being set as well. There’s not a very clear legislation policy around what is allowed, what is not allowed. So most of the players are international players who are looking at India and the potential and the significant scale of opportunity and then saying, okay, why don’t we go and try that? So there are a few guys in the ocean CDR space who are keenly looking at the potential in India and the coasts.
I think there might have been some smaller trials as well, but as far as I’m aware, there’s nobody who’s trying to do significant scale up right now as we speak. Tom, if you might know somebody, please, please chime in.
Tom Mills: It’s worth just saying that, you know, when we’re talking about ocean alkalinity, India is host to one of the largest volcanic provinces in the world. You know, the Deccan Traps, Rosmahal Traps, you know, we have this massive quantity of basalts there that could be deployed for these purposes. So there are, there has been early, early stage research in some research institutions on ocean alkalinity enhancement. However, I do not believe that there is any deployment currently ongoing.
Radhika Moolgavkar: I mean, I think the good news, right, is carbon removal is nascent everywhere. Even though we may seem a little bit further ahead, we’re not that much further ahead. And so we’re all kind of struggling with the same things, right? The U. S. is struggling with the regulatory process. Kenya is struggling with that. You all are. So it’s kind of, I think, almost at the same location in terms of where we are on the starting line. I have a follow-up question about the investment. And this is something I actually talked to Octavia about as well.
But I’m curious how you balance, I’ll just say, the colonial past of India, how you balance thinking about Western investment and making sure that India retains control and the companies who are created and functioning in India. Shantanu, I’ll let you take that one.
Shantanu Agarwal: So in my view, I think that control is not as important as who is the beneficiary. You know, there could be a US company or a European company comes in and sort of sets up, brings the technology with it and sets up operations in India and tries to do carbon removal in India. But that doesn’t really take away the fact that the employment is being generated in India and the value of The economic value being created is being passed on to the people who are most vulnerable. So I would say we should not consider it as a piece of where we should in any way impede for an investment.
And if you look at what are the most successful industries in India where massive scale growth has happened and a whole economies have been built and people have been uplifted, it is in, for example, the tech sector where investments have been Massive. I mean, everybody, all these companies, billions of dollars of valuations have been invested by Western and European investors. And that’s what’s created these industries and so much employment and so much wealth for people. So I think the lens of that, we should really be guarding it and licensing these things and sort of...
Disallowing certain people to come and invest in it is sort of a passé thought. You know, it’s today’s world, today’s government. And I think the way the Indian economy is now used to it is basically if you’re creating value and you can actually create employment, create valuation, increase and provide to the employees and provide to the partners here, all investment is built. That’s how I would see it.
Radhika Moolgavkar: I like that. That’s very pragmatic and also gets, you know, it achieves the purpose that you’re trying to set, which is bringing, bringing the industry to India, however it needs to be brought. So I’m going to kind of want to hear about the future state. So Tom, I’m going to start with you and can you tell us what’s, you know, next for Korea, your next immediate steps and then how you hope to grow and, you know, maybe the next two to three years.
Tom Mills: So I think we can split our careers work into four buckets, really. First of all, you know, one buckets around conducting research and communicating that research. So building a really robust understanding of the opportunity and challenges of developing CDR sector in India. And we’d be working on that to develop a white paper for Indian policymakers. That’s really about communicating, first of all, the difference between Emissions avoidance reduction on the one hand and emissions removals on the other. And then within emissions removals, what is the difference between low durability and high durability storage, you know, and that’s, and that there is, there is within the policy making ecosystem, there is, there is often a confusion around the difference between these entities and also looking at really engaging on separating out High durability CDR for the other aspects and ensuring when we’re looking at the development of the Indian carbon market, which we are, which is currently ongoing and the development policies around that, we can ensure that durable CDR has its own sort of separate space to allow it to really glow and flourish at a different price point and with a different market.
You know, so that’s the sector of the whole, and then we’ll look at a series of deep dives beneath that. So we’re delving into each of these technologies, each of these pathways. First of all, we’ve done research into biochar, then we’ll look at BEX, the RWH, and so forth. And that will be the basis for real engagement. There’s a saying in India that how do you make a rice cake? You bake it from all sides. So we need to get everyone along this journey with us, right? This is demonstrating to everyone the potential here.
And I think there’s been some well-researched challenge around the voluntary carbon market in India. And we need to be demonstrating high quality CDR. It’s very, very different from some of these activities that have gone on before that have been sort of buffed under the carbon market. So that’s one area. The second area is around ecosystem building, and we’re really excited to be supporting Remove, the leading nonprofit organization driving entrepreneurial CDR programs, ecosystem building activities currently in Europe and their expansion to India. So that is super, super exciting. And you were talking earlier about...
Looking at how do we balance investment with homegrown IP? You know, this is about fostering an ecosystem and fostering a lot of that R&D and technology within India. Really excited about. And we’ll be also engaging in building up that wider CDR ecosystem through series of gatherings. We’re releasing our white paper at COP and that’ll be with open air and that’ll an opportunity for everyone to get together about CDR in India. And then we’re looking at bringing CDR research under the institutional research structures of India. So we’re engaging with agricultural research organizations to run a number of pilot projects within their demonstration farms, KBKs in India.
And so we can get those findings within that Indian system and get those findings up throughout all the way from those pilot farms into the state and then the national level. And then lastly, really raising awareness outside of India so that if you are either an initiative or a country looking at direct purchases of CDR, you should be looking at India. This is a country where you can get high quality carbon dioxide removal, but also at the same time, creating climate resilience and ensuring some flows from historic emitters to those who have contributed the least to the carbon budget.
We’re going to be engaging in those four areas. And as people, as more and more companies look to enter India or build up homegrown talent, we’re wanting to bring them under the crude banner and work for them to drive forward a thriving carbon removal sector in India. So get in touch. If you’re interested by India, go on our website, sign up to our mailing list, reach out on LinkedIn. Love to hear from you.
Radhika Moolgavkar: First of all, I love the vision. It’s impressive. And I think just what is needed. I did have a follow up question because I forgot to ask this earlier. How is Korea thinking or or the sector in general about the double counting issue and how private companies are selling credits or the government? And, you know, your your mention of being a cop and working with Open Air Collective. And are there policies in place within India to address that? I’m curious about the thinking there.
Tom Mills: So I think this is a really germane question. And I think no further to the Allstead-Microsoft deal, you know, this is obviously coming to the higher up the agenda. And as we look at ExoG in Sweden as well, the potential for this to happen again. I know that Robert Hoagland has produced a blog post on this recently, but I think for us, it’s around asking, going back to first principles and asking some key questions about additionality. So question number one. Would carbon, durable carbon dioxide removal occur in India if it was not for purchases of CDR by corporations?
And the answer to that is no. You know, there’s no subsidies for CDR in India. There aren’t policies where this would happen anyway. Net zero targets to 2070, they’re a long wear way. This would not happen unless corporations purchased CDR credits. It’s question number two. Would durable carbon removal happen in India if it was not for purchases of CDR credits by international companies outside of India? And the answer to that is no. You know, the domestic market doesn’t support currently the purchase of high quality, high priced CDR credits. And question number three, would international companies purchase CDR credits from India if they weren’t going towards their net zero targets?
No, probably not. Definite, definite additionality from selling credits internationally from India. And this is going to be the only real way at this stage in time, and that may change over the future, to scale the sector with India. And to achieve that gigatonne scale we need, at this moment in time, that’s what we’re going to require. I know that Iva Tamine was talking about this recently. It’s up to the country to determine whether there can be co-claiming against country And corporate-based net zero targets. And on the Indian side, that remains uncertain.
And we may see that developing as part of the Indian carbon market. And there may be a policy position taken. But at the moment, that remains uncertain about how that would work. And there’s no indication of the current policy position on India on that to claim it.
Radhika Moolgavkar: All right. And then final question for you about MACT’s future plans. What are you doing in the next year and where are you hoping to grow and in the next months and years to come?
Shantanu Agarwal: So right now, the India potential in terms of impact is very significant. So we want to reach as many farmers as fast as possible. So we are really wanting to scale a model in India. So that means that we will be hopefully recruiting about a thousand farmers a month type of scale by the next couple of months and then try to multiply that from there on. As you grow. But that also means that we have to also find significant a lot of capital to really fund that. So that is a work in progress in how to deliver.
Because to make this work and sort of maximize the value transfer to these farmers, we have to really, at the same time, find the buyers who are wanting to buy these type of carbon removal credits at the same time, also fund operations because the weathering happens over a period of five years and the carbon removal credits should get generated after all the expenditures happen and there’s a financing need in the middle. So I think our scale-up is really... Can be quite significant, tens of millions of tonnes, a hundred million tonnes, which is the real potential of India.
But it is all dependent on how fast are we able to get capital and deployed into the country to really help scale the method and also mature the overall space of PRW in India.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Yeah. I mean, as I said earlier, I think those are the same issues we face in the US. We finding the demand signal, finding the right capital financing mechanism. So We’re all on this path together and I hope that we can, as a CDR world, kind of address them. Those are big hurdles I think we all face. Well, anyway, I want to thank you both for joining me today. It was really educational for me. You know, I have not interacted much with CDR companies from India, so I’m really happy to see the ecosystem growing.
Seeing this alliance being created there and I look forward to seeing how you mature and grow over the next year because a year in CDR is like 10 years in any other industries. I’m sure next November there’ll be lots of progress made. Thank you both.
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