We’re back with another business-focused episode of Carbon Removal Newsroom, hosted by Radhika Moolgavkar, Nori’s Head of Supply and Methodology, along with Holly Jean Buck, Assistant Professor of Environment and Sustainability at the University at Buffalo (P.S.— look out for Holly’s new book, Ending Fossil Fuels: Why Net-Zero Is Not Enough, coming out on November 16th!). Plus, we’re joined by our co-host for business-focused episodes: Susan Su, partner focused on climate investing at Toba Capital and course creator for Climate Change for VCs, a course and community through terra.do.
This week, we are taking a look at the UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26), the summit in Glasgow which begins Sunday, October 31st and lasts for two weeks. Specifically, we dive into the UK’s announcement calling for a global net-zero commitment by 2050, and what the implications of this goal might be for the carbon removal industry.
Next, we discuss some of the VC funding that happened in October, particularly for CarbonCapture, a modular DAC company, that landed a huge round. Plus, Anglo-Australian mining company Rio Tinto recently announced a plan to invest $7.5b by 2030 into decarbonizing their business. Does their foray into Direct Air Capture signal a trend that big emitters are ready to invest into this technology at the scale necessary to really bring down costs per tonne? Or are they looking for a way to avoid emissions cuts? Or both?
We finish the episode with two good news stories from Susan: the first is that electric car sales more than doubled year-over-year in August to over 516,400! Second is that turtle populations in Cape Verde rose from around ten thousand in 2015, to almost 200,000 this year after successful conservation efforts.
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 everybody to this week’s Carbon Removal Newsroom. We’re focusing on business news and we have our three panelists as usual. We’ll be taking a look at the United Climate Change Conference, or COP26, the annual climate summit in Glasgow, which begins this Sunday, Halloween, and lasts for about two weeks. And why is COP26 so important? We’ll kind of dive into it. And also we will discuss some of the VC funding that happened in October, particularly Carbon Capture, which is a modular DAC company that landed a huge round. So with me this week, I have Susan Su, who is a partner focused on climate investing at Toba Capital.
Additionally, she’s the course creator and lead instructor for Climate Change for VCs, a course in community for the climate investors via Terra. do. Additionally, I have Holly Jean Buck, as always, the Assistant Professor of Environment and Sustainability at the University of Buffalo. And finally, it’s myself, Radhika Moolgavkar, Head of Supply and Methodology at NORI. So we’ll turn to COP26 because all eyes, at least in the climate world, are on Glasgow as world leaders head to Scotland to negotiate a follow-up agreement to the Paris Accords. Heads of state will be discussing lots of different climate strategies, but the big one will be the global net zero commitment by 2050.
The event’s host country, the UK, has called for such a goal and has been echoed by many others, including the Secretary General of the UN, However, it’s been decried by a group of 24 nations. So if such an agreement were reached, it could have numerous implications for the carbon removal industry as net zero also implies the need for negative emissions. And a global net zero deal could cement carbon removal as a central piece of the world’s climate response and generate lots of funding on both the supply and demand side of the carbon removal marketplace.
So Susan, I’m going to turn it to you to one Take us back a little bit for the Paris Accords and how they might have impacted carbon removal funding, if at all, and what you’re thinking and looking forward to with the upcoming COP meeting in Scotland.
Susan Su: Thanks, Radhika. Yeah, so I think the first thing is that it’s really important to keep in mind that both Paris and COP26 are mostly about government commitments as well as international diplomacy. So in other words, it’s more about government’s relationships with one another and maybe with their respective political futures than it is about their relationships with the private sector in any kind of direct way. On top of that, even from a regulatory perspective, we know that the agreements that came and will come out of these summits are voluntary and non-binding.
And we know that most countries are not on track with even their own voluntary non-binding commitments. So more than anything, the Paris talks and accords were really about pacing the conversation and setting a cultural norm. Now, because these talks do guide policy, but don’t set it, they are all about sending signals, not only to other nation state participants, but also to the business world. So it’s not in the actual regulation, but more so in the hint of regulation. As well as the implicit threat towards socializing to operate where the Paris talks had and I believe are still continuing to have their impact.
So following up from that summit, we saw a new voluntary private sector association spring up. Everything from the net zero asset owners alliance, which formed in 2019 and is committed to applying science based targets to the financial sector. And the We Mean Business Coalition, which was actually formed before Paris in 2014, but really took off in the year since and which brings together major business leaders from corporations all the way down to SMB, small to medium sized businesses, really around the world in order to drive climate action through policy advocacy from the business community.
So just in sum, all of that puts pressure back on policymakers, for sure, since we know that government is in the pocket of business. I kid, but not really. And not only that, but plays a really big role in shifting the so-called Overton window of what’s politically and culturally acceptable to care about and to fight for. So in other words, the impact is nebulous, but it’s there. And I think it’s important to remember that some of the biggest work isn’t immediately measurable until suddenly it is.
Radhika Moolgavkar: So just as a follow up, Susan, what did you think was the biggest cultural norming, if you will, that came out of Paris? And what do you anticipate for Glasgow as maybe the next sort of leap forward in this area?
Susan Su: Well, I think it’s more the cultural norming that I’m pointing to is more aligning towards climate action as opposed to aligning towards a head in the sand type of inaction or denial. And I think we’re already starting to see that with, I know we’re going to talk about this later in the podcast, but with countries as diverse as China, Australia, really fossil fuel driven countries, Saudi Arabia and even Turkey making commitments publicly now. I think all of that is given permission to happen because of efforts like Paris and because of efforts like COP.
So it’s not like they’re going to result in some immediate new legislation or business regulation. And I don’t think that’s their intended purpose. I think it’s more around signaling both a permission to take climate action and to make commitments and to have those not be punished, but actually be rewarded by shareholders and other stakeholders. So I think it’s more around that and we’re already starting to see that in a lot of different areas.
Radhika Moolgavkar: So Holly, I’m curious to kind of get your impression, as Susan kind of touched on, we’re seeing petrochemical states like Saudi Arabia, we’re seeing Developing nations like Turkey, making these commitments to net zero and by 2050, as well as what we’ve talked about in the past, Chevron and other kind of petrochemical companies making these same commitments. So do you think that this will result in complete changes to their economies and or their business models? Or is this going to just result in maybe a broader carbon removal marketplace? So net zero isn’t really about As much emission reduction as an emission avoidance as purchasing carbon removal for your emissions.
Holly Jean Buck: I mean, there’s two ways you could see it. You could see it as these petrostates want some more billions and it’s a delay tactic of delaying the inevitable another 10 years, another 20, I don’t know. But you could also see it as this is a vision for net zero. Net zero doesn’t prescribe [inaudible] It has the constructive ambiguity there.
And if you look at the frameworks from some of the national oil companies, the UAE’s national oil company, also Aramco, What they’re framing this as, you know, circular carbon economy framework. Aramco has the four Rs of reduce, remove, recycle, et cetera. I mean, they’ve also set up an investment fund for carbon capture. Saudi Arabia has recently and is investing a lot in blue hydrogen. So, you know, that’s a net zero vision. And unless we specify limits on residual emissions, there’s room for those net zero visions.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Susan, I saw you were nodding and maybe had something you wanted to add or explore more in that comment from Holly.
Susan Su: I just wanted to, I really love the point that Holly was making that net zero is a target, but how you reach that target is sort of up to you. It’s a choose your own adventure and will depend on a number of different kind of potential combinations. And so when we see countries or companies even Proclaim a target like net zero, it’s really down to the details of exactly how they plan to achieve that. It can involve reduction, it can involve offsetting, and how much is going to be very, I think, custom to each case.
So I think it’s a little bit hard to say, well, this announcement is going to equal this sort of increase in market cap for carbon removal. We actually really don’t know because it’s all about how it gets implemented.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Do you see any kind of early trends in terms of where companies are showing more interest in either investing or in developing tech right now, or is it just too soon to tell, do you think?
Susan Su: I think for companies who would potentially be buyers, I’m starting to see a very, well, first of all, there’s an influx of more companies that are going to become buyers. Among the very early adopter set, we’re starting to see companies be more nuanced about the quality of the carbon offsets and how they’re participating in those markets. And I think that’s really, really important, something maybe we’ll get to touch upon later, which is around the sort of lack of certification and the ambiguity that there is in carbon removal right now, all of the different flavors.
And, you know, those more righteous flavors not getting compensated adequately as such. So I think the very early adopters way over, you know, to the left of the curve, they’re starting to demonstrate some of that savvy or some of them have been for a while, a few of them have been for a while. I would say the majority who are still just kind of Turning on to the idea of incorporating a net zero target and incorporating carbon markets, carbon offsets, carbon removal as part of that target, they’re still, I think, not necessarily being super nuanced about the way that they’re going to achieve that.
And I think that actually does create somewhat of a quandary for the overall market. On the supply side, I see there’s just a lot of companies that are starting to think about that same problem that I described and think through how software and other sort of scalable technologies can be enablers, enablers of projects, enablers of auditing and transparency on those projects, enablers of clarity of ownership. And so I think we will start to see a very rich and sort of like multi-level ecosystem coming up. Well, we’re already starting to see that, but we’ll see that even more going forward.
And I think that’s really exciting. Another just trend kind of separate from your question, I’m starting to see, I don’t know if this is a trend or maybe I’m just wishing it into existence, but I think there’s, we used to say voluntary carbon markets a lot as like the phrase. And now I’m starting to just see that word voluntary go away and not be a thing and not have so much emphasis. I think that’s fantastic for carbon removal companies. And it’s really driven by a lot of this, you know, kind of net zero interest that we’re seeing, but that’s definitely a space to watch.
Oftentimes language is the leading indicator to the real change that we’ll start to see.
Radhika Moolgavkar: So pivoting just a little bit, Holly, you have a new book coming out on November 16th, which I’m going to shamelessly plug to all of our listeners. It’s called Ending Fossil Fuels, Why Net Zero Isn’t Enough. So congrats on that. But more kind of to the point of COP, Your title might indicate you’re a little skeptical of net zero. We’ve also talked about that a little bit on these various podcasts and how the devil is in the details. So if you could say anything or provide the keynote speech at COP26, what would you tell government and business leaders about net zero and what they should be aware of and what’s kind of maybe gimmicky?
Holly Jean Buck: I’m not against net zero. I think that it... Offers flexibility, both spatially and temporally, that’s important. But we need to move climate policy from this kind of singular focus on emissions that happen after fossil fuels are combusted. Net zero is an extension of that focus. In addition to that, we also need to be focusing on production. And you may be thinking, okay, we have this energy crisis now. Doesn’t that show that we need to be focusing on reducing demand? And scaling up renewable supply. Yeah, we need to do those. But I think that this energy crisis also shows us that we really need a planned and controlled decline of fossil fuels, not a crazy, unpredictable market driven decline.
And so countries really should be discussing supply side measures and putting those into NDC’s nationally determined contributions.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Yeah, just a small, just a small little goal there, huh, Holly? So, you know, we’ll be at this conference, we’re going to be, they’ll be talking about coal or phasing out coal, methane mitigation, accelerating EVs, ending deforestation, on and on and on. What goal do you think deserves the most Maybe or approach deserves the most attention, and this is to both of you. And then I’ll follow that with, is there a carbon removal strategy investment entrepreneur that people should be listening for who are listening to the COP26 conversation? Holly, I’ll let you start.
Holly Jean Buck: Yeah, well, I think that this 100 billion fund from more affluent, historically emitting countries, you know, for climate finance is a must. It affects everything. There’s a lot of, you know, failed promises, broken trust. The developed countries have to deliver that, number one. I guess relating to carbon removal, the other thing, To be watching is what happens with these Article 6 negotiations about international carbon markets.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Susan, what are you thinking about?
Susan Su: Yeah, I think the fund is really important just because it’s basically a diplomacy move and we really need to work on cooperation. I think it was great that Holly brought up the energy crunch and how it’s sort of happening because we’re moving You know, very haphazardly into an energy transition that’s being being driven by the private sector without a whole lot of government participation or planning or was certainly without enough. And so I’m actually really interested to see what the discussions yield on not just the idea of phasing out coal, but the how.
And the wind and the specific other sort of sub milestones that fall under the wind. There was a story that came out, I think just yesterday in CNN, that the Blackstone CEO, Steven Schwartzman, he’s kind of going out on a soapbox and talking about how high energy prices are going to set off social unrest all around the world. And pose threats to social stability and to governments. And I think that, you know, that’s a really bold statement to make that would, at the face of it, seem to kind of challenge climate action and challenge this transition to renewables.
But if you double click, I think what is really going on and what’s really being said is that this is a mismanaged, or hasn’t, not mismanaged, but it hasn’t been actively managed There are all of these pension funds. Last episode, we talked about the divestment actions of the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund. Another large fund in the Netherlands called ABP announced that it’s going to sell 15 billion euros worth of holdings in fossil fuel companies. They announced that just yesterday. And so on the one side, we have all of finance, not all of finance, but a lot of finance saying, hey, we’re going to get out of this.
And we’re going to make it really tight for fossil fuel companies to access financing, to be able to fund new infrastructure development, to open up new wells and to produce more. But on the other hand, we’re not seeing really a lot of organized effort organization around how exactly do renewables step into that gap and how quickly do all of those things need to happen? There needs to be some coordination. And so I’m hoping that The timing of this round of COP26 with the current energy challenges that we’re facing will actually produce some attention and fruitful conversations around that.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Yeah, which brings up something I alluded to at the beginning, which is about our 24 nations, including India and China, are accusing rich nations of failing to address their historic responsibilities for causing climate change. And sort of shifting the burden on developing countries. And so, Susan, shouldn’t this emerging zero emission carbon removal economy be seen as a way for these countries to compete with Western countries? Like, shouldn’t this be a way to level the playing field or is that kind of a naive perspective?
Susan Su: So aside from commenting on the validity of the argument itself that, hey, now it’s our turn to pollute, I think that part of this question goes back to my previous point about infrastructure financing. I know it’s boring, but it’s so important. On the nature-based solution side, I’m really not sure that emerging economies want to trade land that might go towards agriculture or other revenue generating purposes for nature-based carbon removal, even if it is compensated. It’s really important to keep in mind for every country, and especially for emerging economies, but really for every country, it’s really all about two things.
One being energy security, mainly as a means to maintain social stability and thus political power, and then two being income. Now, is a zero emission carbon removal economy going to generate more income than a high emission carbon intensive economy? If these countries believe the answer is no, Then it’s not going to be feasible to expect them to forego in their minds wealth and development for, I guess, you know, sort of someone else’s goals, not my problem, someone else’s goals. And that’s why we have this argument in the first place. On the technology-based solution side, you know, that’s going to require infrastructure investment.
And so we come to this same quandary of Infrastructure is not easy to build. It’s not easy to finance. It actually requires an enormous amount of just operational intensity at both of those levels. And it’s a question of trade-offs. When you look at a country like India at 1% to 2% renewables penetration or China at 15%, should we be investing that infrastructure effort in developing out renewables in those countries or Technological carbon capture. So while it may seem like it could be an opportunity, it just doesn’t feel like it’s the kind of first order of business.
And so I think that’s where we kind of come into this little bit of tension between nations, a lot of tension, I should say.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Holly, for your maybe sociologist mind, I was interested by the fact that these countries almost are starting from the premise that they should be allowed to admit rather than maybe start from the premise of a more positive, like we will do our best not to admit, but maybe our target should be a little different from the historically, historic emitters like the United States. Maybe it’s just as simple as what Susan said, it’s stability, but why aren’t they learning from our mistakes?
Holly Jean Buck: Why do they just want to compound what the West has already done or I think if we, again, put aside the lens of emissions and think about production, I mean, some countries have gas that they want to develop. It’s not just about emissions. It’s about using that as a lever for development for an exchange. You know, one of the problems is that a lot of times that the wealth from that will go to Corrupt elites. Elites can capture rents more easily from fossil fuels than other things sometimes. But I just want to read a very short part of what these countries actually said.
This is from the like-minded developing countries ministerial statement that came out recently. I had my students read this in full, so be glad you’re not in my class. But what they said is, During their own industrialization phase, the developed countries have overused their domestic carbon space and used those of developing countries, disregarding this historical cumulative and per capita cumulative emissions by not reflecting it in their current emission reduction pledges under the Paris Agreement. And by promoting distant net zero targets for themselves amount to furthering carbon injustice and inequity. And so what they want developed countries to do is Better acknowledge that historical imbalance.
And then they say, leave the remaining atmospheric space for the developmental rights of the developing world and aim for their full decarbonization within this decade. Now you might read that and say, okay, well, nobody’s going to fully decarbonize this decade, right? It’s just a rhetorical move. I think the point is that they’re seeing this carbon space as a resource that like so many other resources have been taken away from the Global South. And so that’s really a fundamental part of the viewpoint here.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Yeah. While this conversation has been great, I don’t want to lose sight of the fact that we want to talk a little bit more just about businessy, businessy stuff. So kind of what’s been going around in the carbon removal fundraising world. Really quickly, I will run through a few that have come through. Carbon Capture, like I mentioned, it’s a modular direct air capture company that raised $35 million from both Prime Mover Lab, which is Mark Benamoff’s time ventures, and mining giant Rio Tinto, which is an interesting addition to the carbon removal space.
Clean Energy Systems, which is a waste biomass power plant with geological carbon storage in California. It was $15 million with the lead by Carbon Direct. Made of Air, which is a German carbon negative materials company, prioritizing forestry waste to make durable materials, $5. 8 million. And Rep Air, Israeli’s electrochemical DAT company, which will also build modular units that they raised $1. 5 million. Let’s maybe Susan I’m kind of curious about this new player and the direct air capture industry carbon capture mainly because they raised a lot of money from some interesting folks so what’s going on there.
Susan Su: Yeah, so this is a, this is a very, very serious team it’s a really well connected team. The CEO of this company was formerly the head of carbon engineering. So carbon engineering being one of the kind of foremost earliest direct air capture companies. I don’t know the backstory. I’d love to know it at how the carbon capture got started and was able to recruit this really like, you know, sort of scion of the industry over to run the company. I also think just like when I look at these funding events, I always like to look at who and ask why.
So Benioff has been famous, infamous for his support of nature-based solutions. He’s, you know, was kind of, I think, put his weight behind the Trillion Trees Initiative. And I think, from what I understand, has really a personal penchant for nature-based solutions and for trees and for forestry. And so it’s fascinating to see such large commitment and participation in a DAC company. And I think it’s a great sign. It’s a great signal that shows that, look, sometimes people on the investment side, you have to just let the public think what it will until you can prove them otherwise.
And so I’m really impressed with the investor set here. And I think that the company is following a broader trend in technology, which is to move from kind of these more, and when I say broader, I really mean multi-decade trend, Which is to move from these more centralized models of technology creation and distribution towards decentralized distributed models. And what do I mean by that? I mean that carbon capture is not going to be focused on building a few gigantic factories in a few locations to do this work. They’re really trying to be, as you mentioned, I think you said the word modular.
But also thinking about what is a modular unit that can fit on the back of a pickup truck? What does that imply for the manufacturing process? Well, it implies a more modular and probably decentralized distributed manufacturing footprint. It’s asset light and it leverages resources in a really, really different way where you can take a product to market much more quickly. Get feedback, get revenue feedback on that product before having, you know, before you’re sort of like $20 million in on a big infrastructure development plan. And so I think it’s really smart and it’s definitely, you know, but they’re not the only ones applying decentralized distributed models to Innovation, but I do think it’s very much the zeitgeist.
And I’m excited to see this happening. I know there have been other DAC companies that focus on smaller units that can either, you know, like Noia, attached to a cooling tower or I think Opus is point source, but it’s also like very small units. So they’re not the first to kind of think about it from this approach, but I think it’s really ambitious and good luck to them. You know, I’m sure it’ll be a really major contender, not only because of the capital they’ve raised and from whom, but also because their model lets them be a lot more nimble than some of the others that are around.
Radhika Moolgavkar: So Holly, I’m curious for your perspective about these modular DAC units, because some of the things we’ve talked about in the past is just the generic permitting requirements needed for some of this stuff. Additionally, like the pipelines to move the CO2 around, like you can’t just plop a DAC unit anywhere always.
Holly Jean Buck: And so have you had any thoughts about these more modular decentralized DAC units and how they might scale Yeah, I mean, maybe this is the part I don’t understand, because even if the collection is more decentralized, the injection underground, you know, we don’t, I guess, you know, maybe if these class six permitting well challenges, you know, get solved, then maybe you can imagine having more injection wells, but You know, the geology for where you would want to inject CO2 is pretty specific. So I do think that it kind of implies a big transportation network, which implies people being okay with, you know, eminent domain for CO2 pipelines.
And we’ll see how that goes.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Sounds a little like oil pipelines that have been less than less than popular, as we know, here in the US. The other question I have for you, Holly, is Rio Tinto. I hope I’m saying that right. It’s a big country with a big footprint. And so with this, you know, a plan, this investment along with an announced plan to invest about $7. 5 billion by 2030 in decarbonizing their business, what do you think this signals? And then Susan, I’d actually be curious about your opinion about this too. Like, what do you think this signals for a Just generically what big emitters are thinking about and is this just about emission avoidance or are they gonna really need to focus more on carbon removal?
Holly Jean Buck: I mean, I think that a company like Rio Tinto has enough money to make some small bets that might lead to things down the line. So they put $4 million into this, doesn’t seem like that much really. And also maybe, you know, I think some carbon removal solutions will mean a lot of profits for mining generally, as does decarbonization broadly. I mean, we’ve seen them invest in lithium and, you know, other things involved in battery production. So why wouldn’t they invest in carbon removal stuff too?
Radhika Moolgavkar: Susan, what are you thinking about like a company like Rio Tinto getting, I don’t know, is this their first foray into carbon removal or the most maybe? Biggest splash.
Susan Su: Yeah, it’s interesting. I was speaking with a friend recently who works from a philanthropic standpoint with heads of large corporations. And I think there’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes of these folks always kind of appearing as bad guys in the news. And if I can pay $4 million to Just to have a couple of headlines where I’m not the bad guy, I think that’s a pretty small price to pay. When the company itself is a $100 billion company, $4 million is a tiny, tiny drop in the bucket.
So not to minimize what it is that they’re doing. And it’s possible that it gives license to other companies in their same sector to do the same. But I just think follow the money. Let’s look at the amounts. Let’s look at where it’s going. And then we’ll kind of judge from there.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Yeah, well, I mean, I think the good news is the money in the carbon removal space is only going up. So if we’re following the money, the trends are on point, I think, for at least my neck of the woods in business. And that gives me reason to be positive as I think just the gathering of a bunch of heads of states to talk about emission reduction net zero and trying to move it forward. Because as you mentioned, Susan, You know, the license to talk about it is the first big step in making progress in this realm.
And so with that, I’m going to end the segment today with what, Susan, you’re thinking is good news in the world and what we should be all focusing on to stay positive.
Susan Su: Is it okay if I share two stories?
Radhika Moolgavkar: Absolutely.
Susan Su: Two is better than one here. They’re very different. And it’s because one of them I came up with, I thought it was important to highlight, but I didn’t know if everybody would be really happy about this because it’s not great news for some people. I’ll share that one first. So a new report came out that EV sales almost doubled between 2020 and 2021, which is crazy. This was from Inside Climate News if folks want to look for that story. So I think it was up like 90% or 83% over the same period, January to September from 2020 to 2021.
And that’s according to Kelly Blue Book numbers. So it could be missing some, but that’s a really, really large jump in a single year. Now on the downside, and by the way, I will say that’s also amidst some pretty major challenges, the pandemic being least of all, but also Supply chain issues, a shortage of chips that have led to production delays and just, you know, sort of a change in policy that drives or that makes it more incentivized for people to actually get EVs. And so that growth is really in the face of all of these, all these headwinds, I would say.
So I think it’s quite impressive. Now, on the downside, you know, I know personally, we probably all know people that have been Putting in their EV orders and waiting, being shocked to see that they have to wait multiple six, eight or even more months in order to get one. People selling their used Teslas for more than they bought them for because there’s such a demand. So there’s clearly a shortage. And then I’ll just add, too, for folks that are Maybe not aware, but Rivian has filed their S-1 to go public, and it’s going to happen over these next couple of weeks.
They have filed to, they’ve said they want to raise a laughingly small amount, 100 million USD, but it’ll definitely be in the probably- Double digit billions in terms of market cap, ultimately. So we’re really starting to see this inflection point. It’s still very early, and I think a lot of more stayed stodgy analysts will say, well, but it’s only in a few hundred thousand cars, or it’s only in the single digit. Digits of market share, but that’s how movements start. And all of these signs are showing this massive appetite, I think, in the broader American public.
Again, even absent more favorable incentives to really change the way that they’re transporting themselves. And that’s not with all these other cool products coming out online from the F-150 Lightning to all the stuff that Volvo is doing to Porsche electrifying their Macan car. Like there’s so much happening. In EVs. And so I think that’s really exciting. And it’s a cool place for people to come to the table who maybe have different values, different political beliefs. I think a lot of folks just like to nerd out about cars. And I like that can be a coming together point.
So for people who are like, ah, bah, humbug, consumerism and cars, I have another piece of good news for you. Which is that I saw this actually in the Guardian, but this is amazing. So in Cape Verde, they’ve been having just a complete die off of their sea turtle population for a couple of decades now, which is incredibly sad. It’s from both environmental degradation, habitat loss, but also just overfishing, hunting. But recently they just did a new count. So now the current count for 2020, at least not current, probably even higher now, but the 2020 count of sea turtles in Cape Verde is literally 20x what it was in just 2015.
And that is just incredible to me of a multiple. So it went up from around 10,000 turtles in 2015 to 200,000 in 2020, thanks to really decades of conservation work. And I think The lessons that we can learn from this are a couple fold, one being that conservationists, NGOs, and other people have been working on this problem for a really long time and probably working quite thanklessly for many years. And now suddenly we see this inflection. So this is how it relates to the EV point, right? It looks small until suddenly it looks enormous.
And so I’m really excited to see that not only in the markets for EVs, but also here. Internal populations. And then the second takeaway that I think we can glean from this is that it’s really about aligning local people’s interests with conservation interests. So what they would do, a lot of these NGOs, they would sort of bring people in who had been caught hunting or overfishing these. So first of all, there was a stick and a carrot. The stick was legislation, so making it illegal. And then the carrot was actually taking the violators who had been caught doing this and actually bringing them in as conservationists.
They had to do, they were fine and then they also had to do community service, the community service being beach patrol and helping to clean up and patrol the beaches. And there’s a number of really great quotes from people who’ve kind of participated in this who really had their eyes open. Wow, I never thought of turtles as anything special before, but now I would never think to hurt one, they’re my friend. And I think that’s so awesome and so amazing. To show what can happen when we work patiently towards a goal, we will sometimes suddenly see results.
But the results really didn’t happen overnight. It’s like the old Salvador Dali quote, how long do they take you to paint this painting? Just my entire life. But also when we align interests with people who live that reality, we can really see extraordinary results and kind of in a cheesy way, make everybody happy. So that’s my positive two stories of the day.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Well, thanks, Susan. As a real lover of turtles and someone who goes to Maui every year and just really looks forward to seeing them, that is excellent. The second story really touched my heart. So thank you both for your time. I so appreciate it as always. And for all of our listeners, we’ll be back next week with a little focus on the science of carbon removal.
Announcer: 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 removal.
