Ep 80: Carbon Removal with Ben Rubin (Carbon Business Council)

Outline

• What is carbon removal?

• Why is carbon removal critical to acting on climate change?

• What are the different ways to remove carbon from the atmosphere?

• What are the challenges with carbon removal?

• What policies are in place or could be enacted to regulate or support carbon removal?

• Who are the leading organizations in carbon removal?

• How can definers/listeners engage on this topic?

• Expert Guest: Ben Rubin, Executive Director and Co-Founder, Carbon Business Council

What is carbon removal?

• The Institute for Carbon Removal Law and Policy at American University’s School of International Service defines carbon removal as “the process of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and locking it away” hopefully for long periods of time. You may have also heard this called “carbon sequestration” - the process of capturing and storing atmospheric carbon dioxide.

• As we’re sure you know, carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that is a major contributor to climate change as it traps heat within our atmosphere, causing global temperatures to rise. Carbon removal is different from carbon mitigation.

• Carbon mitigation is employing strategies that reduce or avoid future emissions that would otherwise be emitted, like switching fuel sources from fossil-based to more renewables or improving energy efficiency.

• In contrast, carbon removal is the process of removing the CO2 that has already been emitted into the atmosphere. 

Why is carbon removal critical to acting on climate change?

• Removing carbon from the atmosphere can help to slow, reduce, or potentially reverse the negative effects of climate change. Recent climate change research has shown that even years after the Paris agreement pledged to minimize global temperature rise by reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, we have not made progress at the scale that is needed to meet the ambitious targets set. 

• In fact, recent findings from the United Nations found that current greenhouse gas concentrations are at the highest levels we’ve seen in 2 million years. This means that the earth is already over 1 degree Celsius warmer than it was in the 1800s.

• Further, although we understand through climate science that limiting climate change is one of the most critical issues of our time, on our current path, we will likely exceed 1.5 degrees within the next few decades. We can only prevent the worst of potential climate impacts through very ambitious emissions cuts, which unfortunately, we are not on track for with our current global trajectory. 

• Under a high emission scenario, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or the IPCC, found in 2021 that the world could warm by 4.4 degrees celsius by 2100. This would lead to devastating results for the planet as we know it. 

• Additional 2022 research from the IPCC found that carbon removal is now “essential” to limit global temperature rise. With the current decarbonization pathways not being ambitious enough, we will need a combination of other methods to limit dangerous increases in temperatures. Many of the current climate studies show that carbon removal strategies will be needed to reach net-zero (i.e., complete negation of the amount of GHGs produced with the same amount or more removed). This is because it could be impossible to reach net zero solely through emissions cuts, especially in the future after many of the easier decarbonization tactics have been exhausted. However, the amount of carbon removal needed will ultimately depend on the amount of greenhouse gas reductions we can achieve globally in the next few years and how close we are to the Paris Agreement targets. 

• Under one IPCC scenario, we would need to remove 5 billion tons of carbon annually by 2050 and 17 billion tonnes a year by 2100 to stay in a below 1.5 degree scenario globally. While other estimates show that 6 to 10 billion tons of CO2 removal annually would be needed by 2050 for Paris agreement aligned net-zero.

• It is anticipated that carbon removals will play a likely role in achieving global commitments and the practice has the potential to become a go to strategy for businesses. Especially for business in “hard-to-abate” industries, like production of steel, cement, and petrochemicals. These high emissions sectors account for around 30% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions and may not have as many options to mitigate (i.e., reduce or avoid) carbon emissions. 

• It is important to remember that there is no silver bullet to reducing the effects of climate change. Removing carbon is not the only way we’ll solve the climate crisis. These solutions should be used hand in hand with multiple strategies to also reduce emissions for the long term. 

• ClearPath, a strategic non-profit focused on developing and advancing policies that reduce and remove emissions globally, uses the analogy that climate change can be thought of as a diet. When trying to live a healthier lifestyle, you typically start with eating healthier foods to prevent gaining weight. Think of this as carbon mitigation, you’re mitigating the calories before they turn into weight gain. Alternatively, you could just keep your diet the same and only go to the gym to work off any extra calories and the fat that you've accumulated along the way. This is removal! However, if you really want to make a positive impact on your lifestyle then you need both a healthy diet and exercise to make the greatest impact and maintain your progress. Similarly, if we want to make progress to meet environmental targets and reduce the impacts of climate change, we will need both carbon mitigation and carbon removal. 

What are the different ways to remove carbon from the atmosphere?

• The December 2023 report from McKinsey Sustainability titled “Carbon removals: How to scale a new gigaton Industry” notes that there are two main categories of carbon removals: 1.) natural, or nature based solutions and 2.) technology-based or engineered solutions.

• Nature-based solutions use natural processes and the natural environment to capture and store CO2. Through this, carbon is removed by restoring or enhancing natural processes, or through positive, active management of ecosystems. Often this means that carbon is stored into naturally occurring things like trees or within wetlands and coastal ecosystems. 

• On the other hand, technology-based carbon removal methods use advanced technologies to remove carbon from the atmosphere. These methods could include direct air capture and storage, creation of carbon negative products, and creation of bio oil and biochar. 

• The McKinsey report continues to state that there are 10 common carbon removal solutions on the market today. We won’t go into all 10 of these solutions in detail, but it is good to list some of the possible options just so you’re familiar with some of the names. 

• Let’s first talk about a couple nature-based solutions: 

• First, let’s talk forests. Overall global forests account for the majority of carbon removal at about 8.8 billion tons of CO2. So this next nature based solution, Reforestation and afforestation is an important one. This is the practice of planting trees in areas that have been deforested or damaged and preserving trees in areas that have never been forested. This practice can increase biodiversity and ecosystem resilience.

• As we know, forests and trees do a great job of mitigating air pollution and helping to reduce the effects of climate change. In fact, one mature tree can absorb around 22 kilograms, or nearly 49 pounds of CO2 each year during photosynthesis. Which means that in a 40 year span, one tree can store a ton of carbon! 

• The other nature-based carbon removal solution we will highlight is blue carbon management. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, blue carbon is the term for carbon captured by the world's ocean and coastal ecosystems. Blue carbon management is the process of enhancing carbon uptake and storage in oceans and other coastal ecosystems. To do this, marine and coastal ecosystems are conserved, improved, and restored, which enhances coastal resiliency, making them more efficient at capturing and storing CO2. 

• That was a couple nature-based solutions. Now let’s talk technology-based solutions. 

• Building off blue carbon, let’s discuss Ocean alkalinity enhancement. This is the process of adding alkaline substances to the ocean to improve the ocean’s natural ability to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Through this process, substances such as lime or crushed rocks are added to oceans, making it more alkaline, rather than acidic. When oceans are more alkaline, they can more easily convert the dissolved CO2 in seawater into more stable forms of carbon - bicarbonates and carbonates. These forms of carbon can be stored for thousands of years! 

• Enhancing ocean alkalinity, helps to accelerate a naturally occurring process and helps to rebalance ocean acidification. 

• The next technological carbon removal solution involves rocks! Did you know that rocks actually help draw carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere? As rocks are worn away, they release elements like calcium and magnesium, and these elements mix with the CO2 in the air to form new rocks like limestone, also called calcium carbonate. The CO2 from the air is what is actually used to create new rocks that store atmospheric carbon dioxide! While this process occurs naturally as certain minerals react with CO2 in the atmosphere, this process normally takes hundreds or thousands of years. 

• So the next technological carbon removal process, enhanced weathering, also called carbon mineralization. It’s the process of preemptively breaking down rocks and minerals to increase their surface area to make the rocks combine with the carbon more quickly. Enhanced weathering speeds up the natural processes by enhancing their exposure to carbon dioxide and can improve the storage of carbon from the atmosphere.

• And lastly, the one that seems to get the most attention, direct air capture and storage. It’s a technological based solution where, similar to ocean capture, CO2 is taken directly from the air. In this process, air passes through special filters that collect carbon dioxide from the air. The carbon captured from the filters is then stored, often underground to prevent them from going back into the atmosphere. This process often involves the use of large fans and chemical solvents and works like a large air purifier. 

• The world’s first and largest direct air capture plant is located in Iceland, and became operational in September 2021. The site, named Orca, is owned and operated by ClimeWorks, a company focused on carbon removal solutions like direct air capture and storage. The site has the ability to capture 4000 tons of CO2 annually. The company is on a journey to remove billions of tons of carbon dioxide by 2100 and hopes to scale these solutions to larger capacities.

• You may recall us earlier mentioning needing to remove billions of tons of CO2 per year by 2050 to meet the 1.5 degree scenario.

What are the challenges with carbon removal?

• There are many challenges to carbon removal and there is a lot of ongoing debate within the scientific community on whether carbon removal is a viable climate solution. Carbon capture and removal technologies were a hot topic of debate at COP 28 in December of 2023. There is some skepticism within the scientific and environmental community around carbon removal, while other experts believe that storage and capturing carbon is needed and should not be ruled out.

• So what are the challenges? They include scalability, potential negative environmental impacts, cost, and the monitoring, reporting, and verification of impact of these solutions.

• Let’s dive deeper into the scalability challenge. According to the International Energy Agency, there are only around 40 large-scale carbon capture projects in operation globally. These operations are capturing and storing around 45 million metric tons of CO2 annually. This equates to roughly 0.1% of the over 36 billion metric tons of CO2 emitted across the globe each year. So it is safe to say there is a lot more work needed to be done to scale to levels that can make a meaningful impact toward reaching global net zero emissions.

• Beyond technology capabilities inhibiting scale, there’s also the high cost of implementation. For example, it is estimated that direct air capture systems cost between $125 to $335 per metric ton of carbon for a large-scale plant. The high costs make them unsuitable for developing economies and difficult to scale without major investment. 

• Current estimates show that a carbon removal industry that could deliver gigaton level (i.e., 1 billion metric tons) removals could be worth almost $1.2 trillion by 2050. However, to reach this scale, the growing industry would need support from investors, buyers, and others through long-term investments.

• The McKinsey analysis suggests that to get to net-zero in 2050, investments of $6 trillion to $16 trillion will be needed! These investments require action now if they want to be scaled by 2050. 

• Many carbon removal developers have voiced that they need a carbon price like a tax break or a trading program, to make carbon removal projects viable and profitable.

• In the United States, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 provided updated tax credits for the use of carbon capture and storage. Through this new tax credit, for every ton of CO2 that is captured and permanently stored, $50 to $180 of tax credits can be available for companies deploying these technologies.The amount of tax credits available per ton depends on the method of capture and storage. The goal of this tax incentive is to make carbon removal solutions like direct air capture and carbon capture on industrial facilities more of an economical solution. 

• For more on carbon pricing, check out episode 61.

• Further, there are diverging opinions within the scientific and environmental community around carbon removal’s environmental impact. There are concerns that technological approaches, like direct air capture (DAC), could compete with land use or water use and are very energy intensive. A 2018 collaborative study from global universities on the costs and side effects of negative carbon emissions found that a DAC plant that could capture a million tons of CO2 can take up over 400,000 square feet of land space, while also consuming large amounts of water and electricity. Some estimates show that nearly 50 tons of water could be used in some DAC systems for each ton of CO2 captured. These high water, energy, and land costs add to the overall costs of these systems.

• This could be detrimental to areas that are facing water scarcity. If resources are going to new technologies or land is being used to plant trees, rather than food, communities could suffer from a lack of resources. And as we know, there are many communities that are disproportionately affected by environmental harms, which could lead to environmental justice issues.  

• In addition, while natural-based solutions are mostly viewed positively, some say that the reliance on technologies allows for the continued use and production of fossil fuels. These groups believe that carbon capture has been over promised as a climate change solution, so that high emissions industries can continue their emissions, while capturing them later. Some environmental advocates view carbon capture technologies as a “distraction” to traditional emissions reduction strategies, which they think should take precedent. 

• Lastly, there’s the lack of monitoring, reporting, and verification on the effectiveness and levels of carbon removal. Having a process to measure the emissions removed and certify that these removals are “real, additional, verifiable, and permanent” is important. Often, a third-party needs to accredit and certify that the removal methods have been completed correctly. If there is a lack of verification and monitoring of carbon removals, there is a risk that the removals that are being done are of poor quality and do not result in real permanent emissions reductions. Ultimately, this skews the numbers and creates a lack of confidence in the market, which could slow global efforts in this area. 

• To improve in this area, coordination is needed between solutions developments, researchers, and policymakers to ensure that projects are producing results as intended. 

What policies are in place or could be enacted to regulate or support carbon removal?

• One way to mitigate some of the challenges with carbon removal is through policy action. As mentioned, many developers have called for tax breaks, carbon trading schemes, or a carbon tax as methods to make carbon removal a more profitable industry. Many existing policies around carbon markets, tax incentives, and additional funds for research and development can be leveraged to support this fast growing segment. 

• The Inflation Reduction Act as we mentioned was an example of increasing tax incentives to support carbon removal industries. Through this, the US Department of Energy announced its plans to provide $1.2 billion to develop regional direct air capture hubs projects in an effort to help deploy and scale these technologies. 

• Further, the ‘2022 California Scoping Plan for Achieving Carbon Neutrality’, details the plans for the state of California to achieve their greenhouse gas emissions target and achieve carbon neutrality by 2045. A portion of this plan details that both natural and technological approaches to carbon removal will be needed to reach this target. This makes it the only US state that has set a specific target for scaling up carbon removal.

• Additional legislation, like SB 905, which was signed into law in California in 2022, is helping to set a regulatory foundation for carbon removal, capture, utilization, and storage while also making sure that these activities do not take away from traditional emissions reductions. This could potentially serve as a model for others looking to establish regulatory frameworks on the state or national level.

• Looking towards the future, there will likely be additional policies around carbon removal that will be needed like direct regulation, establishment of certification and verification schemes, and rules or frameworks around international issues related to carbon removal.

• For example in the EU, there is proposed legislation around a carbon removal certification. Through this proposed framework, a voluntary EU-wide framework would be established to certify that carbon removals and their process for verification would be validated. This could eliminate potential greenwashing and create a baseline for high-quality, impactful carbon removal projects. 

• In the US, the ‘Carbon Dioxide Removal Research and Development Act of 2023’ was also proposed in Congress. If passed, this legislation would support research, development, and funding for carbon removal projects across the US, and it would allow for additional research on the environmental and social impacts of the various carbon removal solutions. 

• While both of these bills are still under consideration, they could be important ones to follow in the coming years as the market continues to evolve rapidly.

Who are the leading organizations in carbon removal?

• There are many organizations, start-ups, and industry groups working towards the creation and scaling of carbon removal. 

• The research blog, Start Us Insights, detailed a highlight list of 20 startups “to watch” that are working towards carbon capture, utilization, and storage. This highlight list is from the 630 startups they analyzed in the carbon removal space! So while we definitely can’t mention them all, some of the big names in this space include Climeworks, Aker Carbon Capture, and Carbfix. 

• Another is Carbon180. It’s a new breed of climate NGO on a mission to reverse two centuries of carbon emissions.

• An example on the academic side is American University’s Institute for Responsible Carbon Removal. Its mission is to build ways of doing carbon removal that are responsible, democratic, just, and equitable.

How can definers/listeners engage on this topic?

• Carbon Removed, an impact start-up with a mission to reverse climate change, provides a few ways that the average person can help. 

• First, we can work to vote for carbon removal and more sustainable policies. As we discussed, policy changes and significant investments will be needed to scale and fund carbon removal. Supporting governmental leaders at all levels with strong pro-climate stances can help make these policy changes easier. You can also support and join local NGO groups that are dedicated to advancing these policies and can help influence policymaking on a larger scale. Staying informed and advocating for continued research will be helpful in making solutions more mainstream.

• Next, we can continue to reduce our own emissions. Reducing our individual contribution to climate change can make a difference, especially if we all take part. Choosing mass transit, eating a plant-based diet, and being more energy efficient in our own lives can reduce the reliance on carbon removal as a solution by focusing on reducing emissions before they end up in our atmosphere. 

• Third, we can participate in community projects and initiatives. There is no carbon removal action that is too small! Community and grassroots movements play a role in making a change. Volunteering with local community tree planting events, community gardens, and supporting more sustainable agriculture in your local community are small but still meaningful activities to increase carbon removal.

• And lastly, Carbon Removed suggests working in climate and climate tech fields. The more people working in climate industries, the faster solutions can be invented and scaled! Even if a career change is not in your future, you can support climate-based innovations and startups by investing in and sharing their work to spread awareness and increase education.

Expert Guest

• Ben Rubin is Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Carbon Business Council, which is a nonprofit trade association representing more than 100 carbon management companies working together to responsibly restore the climate and make a gigaton-scale climate impact.

• Ben has been advancing climate action throughout his career, leading initiatives for companies, accelerators, governments and nonprofits. His work has galvanized billions of dollars in climate infrastructure funding, passed legislation, and reached hundreds of millions of people through media campaigns.