A lot has been happening in the United Kingdom with regard to carbon removal. Patricia Silva, Co-founder and Non-Executive Director of the Carbon Removal Centre, comes on the show to explain The Oxford Offsetting Principles, the UK's general climate policies and Boris Johnson's recent statements on the matter, a collaboration between Carbon Engineering and Pale Blue Dot Energy, and some news about BrewDog.
Here is the piece Patricia mentions writing for CRC.
Full Transcript
Ross Kenyon: Hello and welcome to Carbon Removal Newsroom. I’m Ross Kenyon. I’m the lead strategist at the Nori Carbon Removal Marketplace. Today I have with me Patricia Silva, co-founder and non-executive director of the Carbon Removal Center in the UK. Hi, Patricia.
Patricia Silva: Hi, Ross. Glad to be here.
Ross Kenyon: I’m happy to have you. There is so much happening in the UK. I keep seeing things pop up. I’ve been looking for reasons to have the Carbon Removal Center onto the show and I’m pleased we found a reason to do it. So maybe a good place to start is what is the Carbon Removal Center?
Patricia Silva: Great, good question. So I can tell you a bit of the story and how it all started maybe. So start with me and a few other folks in the UK. That basically we’re connected to Noah Deitch from Carbon 180. Actually I did my MBA with him and Noah Deitch eventually were speaking to us and mutual friends. And he was asking like, when would you in the UK and Europe create a version of Carbon 180? So as we realized that no one was doing it at the time, I decided to move forward with that.
So basically the Carbon Removal Center, which we usually call CRC, It’s a non-profit that’s working on bridging the gap in the carbon removal landscape. So we address four main barriers, which are communications and awareness, innovation and diffusion of the wide range of techniques. The third is advancing policy and commercial incentives. That very much needs to be done. And the fourth is addressing the lack of a political constituency, which speaks on behalf of the carbon removal sector In an engaging and unifying way. So we’ve been doing a few projects already. We were registered last year, we were created last year, but we’ve already worked on a few projects.
I can just give you one or two examples, such as we’ve been developing workshops with hard to decarbonize industries, and that was before COVID. We’re also creating a guide for businesses that want to engage with carbon removal. And we’re also collaborating with other projects and with other organizations in UK and as well as Europe that are interested in working together to move this carbon removal agenda. So just a shout out if there’s any organization out there listening to this episode and wanting to join efforts in the carbon removal space, please do reach out.
Ross Kenyon: That’s great. I’m happy that the UK has you and your colleagues working on this. Maybe you could help me walk through understanding what’s happening in the UK with carbon removal.
Patricia Silva: Yes, sure. We will be seeing some momentum from the government and some big academic universities that are basically advancing that in terms of creating the discussion around carbon removal. And perhaps you could start, I could start with speaking about the Oxford principles.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, I saw this.
Patricia Silva: So basically these academics from Oxford University launched a standard for carbon offsetting last month. And basically there’s nothing necessarily new in that report, but it’s now in the shape of formal principles around carbon offsetting. So Oxford just gives the validation on this topic and basically it recognizes that offsetting is not a perfect system. But they are hugely important and need to be improved. So these principles, which are four, which I’m going to talk about, help develop clarity around what constitutes a credible net zero aligned offsetting. So just focusing on the, just naming the four principles now.
The first one is around prioritizing cutting emissions before anything else. So we already know that, but eventually do the best offsetting you can. Demonstrating environmental integrity, such as ensuring their additional and also be transparent on the purchase offsets, for instance, disclosing your accounting practices. So that’s the first one. The second is just go along the climate science and purchase carbon removal offsets to reach those Paris Agreement goals. The third one focuses around prioritizing long-lived reliable storage. And the last one, It’s focused on supporting the development of a market for net zero aligned offsets.
So I’d be happy to discuss this a bit further, starting in whatever one you would like.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, we can start at the top, although it sounds like numbers two through four may be a bit more pertinent to our audience.
Patricia Silva: So, well, on the first one, I think it’s very basic, as I mentioned, like on the climate maths, you need to Basically, cut out emissions that you’re still emitting to the atmosphere. And the second part is the removal part. And we should definitely not discard that last part. And actually, that’s an issue that we have in the UK and probably in other nations in terms of we want to achieve net zero goals by 2050. But there’s no direct or straightforward or guidelines on how to do that. So currently, actually, One organization can get to net zero with just full offsetting their emissions.
So there’s no minimum level of ambition for corporate carbon reduction. So basically, I think there’s a gap in the guidelines and the policies in the UK and probably with many other nations. So I think Oxford is very much adamant that as we move forward, and I’m speaking about the UK, but actually these principles can be applied anywhere in the world and for different type of organizations, such as corporates, financial institutions, any government. So it’s very good that they’re clarifying the needs to prioritize cutting emissions. So that’s all I have to say on the first one.
I don’t know if you want to add something here.
Ross Kenyon: I do just a quick clarifying question. You’re saying that the framework currently for British net zero policy, being able to call yourself a net zero organization, you can get there 100% with offsets without decarbonizing at all. But these new Oxford principles are saying that is no longer the case. There’s only a certain amount of offsetting that should really be tolerated to call yourself truly net zero. Is that okay?
Patricia Silva: Yes, they’re basically stating what offsetting should mean and how we should be going about it. It’s not that the UK government has accepted and implemented those principles, but they should as any other government and any other organization. So they’re being very clear on how to get to the real net zero, which is actually a moment in time. So basically there’s no formal separation of negative emissions targets. And the accounting for emissions reductions.
Ross Kenyon: Okay. That sounds good. How about this second principle?
Patricia Silva: Well, the second principle is really straightforward. When you purchase offsets, you should be prioritizing carbon removal offsets. So as you know, you have carbon offsets, which can mean, for instance, like purchasing renewable energy and that will only Reduce the emissions that are put out there in the atmosphere. It doesn’t remove the emissions, the carbon that is already out there. So with that, you’re just focusing on the first part of reducing emissions. You’re not focused on what you need to do extra to get to that real net zero. So I think that’s very straightforward.
Whenever you can, purchase carbon removal offsets.
Ross Kenyon: What is the reasoning for prioritizing one over the other?
Patricia Silva: So I think that the importance of this second principle is the point where people and organizations and corporations are very much focused on reducing emissions because that’s an easy part. But when you focus on, for instance, hard to decarbonize industries, there will always be emitting, well, more than other type of industries. So they will never get to real net zero if they don’t focus on Offsets that remove the emissions that they’ve been responsible for. So that’s a big part.
Ross Kenyon: Okay. How about the third?
Patricia Silva: Yeah, the third is, it’s an interesting one because it focuses on prioritizing long-lived reliable storage. And this is something where sometimes you see two different teams playing for carbon removal, the nature-based solution fans and the more engineering techie solutions fans. And sometimes it can be kind of a, not fight, but less amicable dispute around what’s more important and what has better benefits. So for me on this, I think it’s very clear in terms of there’s a need to prioritize long-lived storage. Why? Because there will be permanently, this carbon will be permanently sequestered for hundreds of years.
And to get to that, usually you focus on more engineered solutions where we store that carbon in underground geological storage or mineralize it or what have you. This looks like it’s deprioritizing nature-based solutions, which, as you know, most of them have a more short-lived storage, for instance, like decades, a few decades, for instance, like on trees and what have you. I definitely believe that both and hybrid solutions are needed because they have different, let’s say, co-benefits. So for instance, if you’re focused on the more short-lived solutions, nature-based, planting trees, afforestation, reforestation, you’re increasing other You’re getting other benefits such as increase of biodiversity and how good that is to the soil and water streams and everything else.
So there’s a lot of co-benefits that come from applying those solutions. They’re more nature-based, less long-lived. You can have the benefits also tomorrow, let’s say. If you’re focused on engineer long-lived storage solutions, They are not yet scalable and we’re a bit far from that. So the goal of them highlighting this here in this third principle is because we need to start focusing on the now to do that deployment, research development on the current technologies to become cheaper and more scalable, as well as some development or new technologies that are, for instance, now in the Valley of Death.
We definitely need to focus on all of them, but definitely prioritize the ones that can give a long-lived storage. And I definitely believe that if you can focus on nature-based solutions but make them more long-lived in terms of storage, that’s perfect. That would be the best of both worlds.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, your framing of this is correct to me in that this has been one of the most fractious issues that I’ve seen for people who care about carbon removal is this fight over permanence and what constitutes it and how sure are we about various suggestions of permanence across methodologies. So we’ll have to see. I certainly am excited about all of it and I think focusing on permanence is A very interesting way to go. And I imagine it’s probably, well, the UK isn’t super big in terms of landmass. So I don’t know how much possibilities there are for forestry and soil relative to someplace like the United States.
But, you know, there is quite a large maritime oil industry out of Aberdeen. And you could probably do a fair amount of work in the North Sea sequestering CO2 and Um, I’m not sure if that influences at all Oxford’s principles, maybe just they value permanence above all else, no matter what. Um, but I’m just spitballing. Is that, is that correct? Or am I just guessing?
Patricia Silva: Yeah, actually the Oxford principles are universal. Like this is for any organization anywhere in the world to apply it. Like they’re not just focused in the UK. This is, uh, for me that you can apply it anywhere. Um, yeah, it just makes sense. Um, I dunno by heart, but yeah, there, I’ve read some studies about the area. That it can use for nature-based solutions in UK. So studies have been made, but I cannot tell you at this moment if there’s enough land area and natural carbon sinks in UK to be able to remove all the carbon that we need.
But to be honest, the UK is actually, let’s say, how can I say that? It’s a cradle for the industrial revolution. So we shifted the carbon cycle the other way. So now we should play a role in terms of removing the carbon that we emitted, but go beyond that. So net zero, it’s just a moment in time. We have to go beyond that. So the UK, I believe it would be a responsible nation if they would go beyond net zero and remove other emissions that they’ve been That they’ve been putting in the atmosphere for years and years and centuries in this case.
So with that, you can only do that if you apply more techy and engineer solutions and sequester the carbon in geological sinks, in my opinion.
Ross Kenyon: Fair enough. Yeah. I had to think some more about that. I guess, you know, East Anglia drained the Fens. You can’t just flood the Fens and get peat bugs again. They’re just sort of gone. So I don’t know what you do about that. I guess you move on to geological, industrial, technological solutions perhaps instead.
Patricia Silva: And especially because you mentioned correctly, we have in the North Sea a lot of good geological storage that we can use. Um, to, yeah, to develop these storage and geological storage projects. So we’re well located for that.
Ross Kenyon: Well, fair enough. Okay. That sounds good. Um, uh, don’t need to, uh, relitigate this classic fight cause it comes up seemingly all the time. And I tried to be neutral, Patricia. Let’s just, we need all of it. Let’s just see what happens.
Patricia Silva: Exactly. We need a portfolio of solutions. You have different pros and cons of each of them and that’s normal. So let’s, let’s be. Be all cheerful for all the solutions that are out there and the sooner we develop them and scale them, the better.
Ross Kenyon: I only get defensive or maybe offensive about it when people are too strongly partisan of one over the other. Like if you get Earth Mamas and Papas in a room and they all want to talk about ecological sequestration and how the tech is bad or not connected with nature. I’m like, we definitely need that. But then when I talk about people who maybe not overstate, but maybe make too big of a deal of the permanence issue for industrial methodologies.
Patricia Silva: Is it like, I don’t know.
Ross Kenyon: I sort of want to like wait and see a little bit more how that plays out and it is still expensive and it’ll come down. But I always want to just take the temperature down a few degrees whenever I see these. And sometimes people put me in a corner where I’m like, no, no, we need it. And you’re overstating your case. And I’m going to sit in the chair of complexity, which allows me to cast judgment on everyone for their strong opinions.
Patricia Silva: Just say, I need to go to the bathroom and just disappear from the room.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah. Or that too. Yeah. Okay. None of this is news to a listener though. So we should probably just move on. And then we have, is it one final principle here?
Patricia Silva: Yes, the one that’s focused on supporting the development of a market for net zero aligned offsets. And I think this is very much needed, actually. So on this, they high level mentioned the creation of long term agreements, which really helped developing a steady cash flow to the risk of projects and advanced solutions, especially if you’re talking about more techie solutions that are very expensive. So they needed some kind of revenue and shortness on the cash flow. To be able to be deploying and improving the efficiency of their technology. So if you have that certainty, you can deploy more resources to these solutions.
Another item they mentioned is developing sector specific alliances to help each other. So we’re all in this together. So if the same industry players are collaborating among themselves to get To removal schools, for instance, let’s say the steel industry, if they’re all collaborating among themselves, we can get there faster in these hard to decarbonize industries more specifically. And actually, it touches a bit of the focus of an article I wrote about two weeks ago, which is published in the Carbon Removal Center website, which talks a bit about this market-based approach, how much that is needed to develop the ecosystem.
It’s good that I also mentioned that here.
Ross Kenyon: Good. And just to clarify, when we were talking about creating a market or market-based approaches, you specified some degree of alliances, but is it also saying that there needs to be something like a either voluntary or compliance market or markets, both approaches? Is that a part of this too?
Patricia Silva: Well, actually, I’m not talking now about the principles, but I think that is something I also mentioned in my article in terms of the voluntary markets that you see big corporates doing it and starting getting the momentum. But there’s always the laggers and those who really don’t want to clean up the mess they’ve made, the waste they’ve made, they created. So for those, you will need policies in place to set targets and also provide guidance Not just say, we have these targets, so work on them, but also provide some guidance on that.
So this market-based approach together with a policy-based approach, I think it would be the best way to get there. But yeah, I’m just speaking out of my own knowledge and thought about the topic.
Ross Kenyon: Okay, understood. Well, Patricia, we should probably scoot along because there are other things on this list we want to talk about. I suppose the next place to take this is I’ve seen quite a lot from Boris Johnson’s office and even him personally. I think I saw some quotes of him talking about carbon removal. Which is exciting to see world leaders talking about carbon removal. So seemingly there is some momentum at the political level, even like the national stage in the UK with carbon removal. Is that true or is this just a Yanks bad impression?
Patricia Silva: No, yes. And it’s great to hear Boris Johnson talking about carbon removal, which is amazing and impressive. And it just shows how the UK is getting a leadership role in this country. This race, this positive race to reach net zero in the right way. So basically the current news and since last year and this year have been getting some momentum is the focus on putting 100 million pounds in new funding for research and development of DAC. But it’s not just a director of capture, it’s actually a few other technologies such as CCUS for instance.
But it’s great. So out of those hundreds, 31. 5 million is actually funding for pure academic research. So for coalition of universities. And that’s given by the Research and Innovation Council, the UKRI. And basically they have a program that’s looking for greenhouse gas removal demonstrators. And they could be around DACs. They can be about enhanced terrestrial wetting, weathering, BEX, and a few other solutions. So that’s part of the budget. The other around 70 million, it’s from BASE, the UK Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy. And they also have an innovation program, which is focused on director capture and other greenhouse gas removal.
Basically, that actually can come from DAX to CCUS and a few other solutions, actually. But this is 100 million. It’s great if you look at the number, but to be honest, we need way more to solve for climate. 100 million will not do in this space, but definitely it’s a start. So it’s a good start. So I’m happy to see this momentum. This is the budget for a year, for one year or so. Hopefully that budget will increase over the next years and the Carbon Removal Center will support that in any way we can.
Actually, the Carbon Removal Center is a signatory of the Coalition for Negative Emissions that was just signed this week. And basically, it’s a letter to the government saying that we, alongside other organizations, such as in the power sector, in the aerospace sector and a few others, Are here to help support the UK government lead on DAC and this carbon removal sector. So we’re here to support the government as well as other organizations. We want to, if we can be the leader organization, leader nation, apologies for that, in this space. So it’s great to see momentum coming from different sides.
Ross Kenyon: I’ll be curious to see what happens as a result. And in years moving forward, I’m sure we’ll hear of new projects, new names, things coming out of the woodwork. We’ll be good to see, I think. Well, there’s two more things on this list here, Patricia. What is happening with carbon engineering and pale blue dot?
Patricia Silva: Yeah, so that’s actually an exciting project that also shows the momentum in the UK for director capture. So Carbon Engineering and Playable Blue Dot actually partner and are creating a project around director capture. And the site is still to be defined, but it might be in Scotland where there’s a lot of legacy on oil and gas infrastructure, as well as good geological formations for carbon dioxide storage, as we were just mentioning the North Sea as well, it’s very close by. So it might be there. So basically, as we know, the carbon engineering’s DAC technology is definitely commercially viable today.
And this partnership between a DAC technology company and a UK development partner really shows that the next step towards establishing a UK DAC industry is coming in. This project, if it’s the Scotland one, there’s still the finding, as I very much know, will be deployed, the DAC project will be deployed in 2026, which is something very interesting. If it’s operational only in 2026, it shows how serious we are in taking these projects further. It’s a long timeline until that is functioning, and these are the kind of the risks That’s that we need in the space.
You need assurance that there’s going to be an offtaker for this carbon as a service, carbon removal as a service. And so I’m very excited about this project. It’s going to be one of many, I’m sure. And before 2026, I’m sure we’re going to have other projects and probably other competitors to carbon engineering entering the UK and taking advantage of the more and more Helpful policies that we’re going to put into place in the government for carbon removal.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, that will be one to watch for sure. And how about this last one, which is fun. I’ve seen their name around quite a few times, but it sounds like there’s news with BrewDog.
Patricia Silva: Yes, so Brewdog is actually a brewer in the UK, which by the way, it’s a very good one. So just doing some free publicity out here. And actually a few months ago, they come up with their own carbon negative goals. So what they said is that they were inspired by Sir David Attenborough’s talk on climate change and actually a side comment Please do watch the latest documentary from David Attenborough on Netflix, which is called A Life on a Planet, and show it to all of your friends and whoever you can.
So it’s his legacy message on climate and what we should be doing about it. So sorry about this, dear rail. So going back to BrewDog, they actually, after listening to David Attenborough, they decided to take a stand on climate when they understood that they They are responsible as much as anyone else for the emissions that we’ve put out there and eventually for climate change. So they reached out to Professor Mike Berners-Lee, which is now their lead scientific advisor, and started creating targets for carbon emissions reductions as well as carbon removal.
So their goal now is to remove twice as much carbon from the air each year as they emit. Drink, Brew Dogs, Beer. You’re actually helping the world get less carbon. So this is also an understanding from them. It shows that they understand the net zero is a moment, as I mentioned before, and not an end goal. To get to 350 parts per million or beyond that, we really need to not stop at net zero. We need to do more. Again, what we’ve emitted so far, it’s too much to the atmosphere in terms of carbon dioxide.
So we really need to remove already what we have out there. And just a side comment, well, a continuous comment on this initiative. BrewDog is actually focused on only nature-based solutions for carbon offsetting, which are carbon removal offsetting, which is good. And they actually have purchased a bit over 2,000 acres of land In the Scottish Highlands to do this. So I really applaud them for doing this. It’s nature-based solutions, which is great. Again, we talked about the benefits out of that. But we need more and more momentum from corporates and others to really solve for climate and go beyond net zero.
But it’s actually a good sign that I’m sure that if we talk in a year’s time, we’re going to have a number of other corporations focused on this, even if it’s not a mandatory market on carbon removal.
Ross Kenyon: It seems very likely that will be the case. And in case you’re listening, Oxford people, not everyone listens to your industrial technological approach. Look at Brewdog here taking a stand for land-based carbon removal. Just kidding. I don’t want to actually have that fight. I’m sick of having it.
Patricia Silva: I must say, actually, that in the principles, there’s a part where they actually mention that they have, well, not in these terms, but that they actually have nothing to Nothing bad against nature-based solutions and they actually encourage it because of the co-benefits. But it’s just in general, if we want to really reach the net zero goals and going beyond that, and that’s what we need in the next decades to come, we should be focused on investing in carbon long permanent storage solutions. So again, they’re not the bad guys here.
Ross Kenyon: Oh, no, no, I’m just making a dumb joke. Yeah, of course, we clearly need that as well. Okay, I say I don’t want to talk about it, and yet I dropped some comment that, of course, you have to respond to, Patricia. We’ll never get out of here if I keep doing it, so I’m just going to cut it there. And say that your article that you mentioned about carbon markets and market-based mechanisms for funding carbon removal, I’ll put that in the show notes, the link to Carbon Removal Center and your personal Twitter.
Is there any way people can get involved in the Carbon Removal Center or things you’re looking for them to do?
Patricia Silva: Yeah, sure. Actually, before we created the Carbon Removal Center, we actually created the Carbon Removal Network Which is a group of people interested in working in the space of carbon removal. Although the carbon removal center is based in the UK, just because the co-founders are from there and we got together there and we did the workshops to define what the carbon removal center would be, was there. The network is actually international. So we have people from the different sides of the planet. On that. And to be honest, the carbon removal, it’s a market that’s universally doesn’t have barriers in the sky to differentiate different emissions from different countries.
So we’re actually definitely a global network of people in the space. So please do sign up for our newsletter and we keep you posted on the projects we do. And whenever we have also work that’s related to your area of expertise, we’re happy to reach out to you and if you want join us. But usually we do get-togethers. We did that before COVID. Now it’s more in the style of webinars that we do. So it’s less mingling. But as soon as this pandemic passes, we’re going to continue doing those get-togethers.
And you definitely should join starting in London because that’s where we are. But eventually in the future in other places.
Ross Kenyon: Terrific. Links to all of those things are in the show notes. Thanks for being here, Patricia.
Patricia Silva: Thank you very much, Ross.
Ross Kenyon: One quick thing. I think I called myself the lead strategist still, but I’ve had a change of title. I’m now the creative editor of Nori. I need to start getting the practice of saying that. Oh, yeah. I have not had to do that before.
Patricia Silva: Congrats for the new position.
Ross Kenyon: Thanks. Lead Strategist was a bit open-ended and it was time to be rather more specific. So happy to do that. And hey, if you’re listening, if you wouldn’t mind doing me a small favor, open up that podcast app on your iPhone, go over to Carbon Removal Newsroom, write us a great review, give us five stars if you believe that we deserve it. It helps a lot, helps us get this content out to more people. And thank you so much for listening.
