CO2 removal is having a moment and not everyone's happy
Investors are showering love on nascent tech that pulls carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, but the vibes aren't so rosy everywhere in climate circles.
Driving the news: The VC firm Lowercarbon Capital just launched a $350 million fund dedicated to carbon removal startups. They're casting a wide net, co-founder Chris Sacca writes.
- His post cites tech that boosts natural absorption in minerals, talks of manipulating aquifer brines, enhancing ocean alkalinity, and growing plants that don't decompose, and other methods.
- There are also approaches "with massive potential that haven’t even been discovered yet."
Catch up fast: Sacca's unveil came 48 hours after Meta, Alphabet and other corporate giants pledged about $1 billion in removal purchases between 2022 and 2030 to help create market demand.
- That effort, led by payment tech company Stripe, is the latest of several recent investments. For instance, last week the Swiss direct air capture company Climeworks raised a fresh $650 million.
- There's public support too. Yesterday the Energy Department announced $14 million in studies for projects to fuel direct air capture (DAC) with clean energy.
- The bipartisan infrastructure law has $3.5 billion for developing U.S. DAC "hubs" to demonstrate the tech.
Why it matters: A landmark United Nations scientific report this month calls carbon dioxide removal (CDR) a "key element" for tackling global warming, though amounts vary.
- CDR includes bioenergy with CO2 capture and storage; direct air capture machines; large-scale vegetation; tech that speeds natural CO2 absorption in minerals; and other ideas.
- It can help compensate for emissions that can't be completely negated in tough-to-decarbonize industries, and also could help moderate temperatures after any "overshoot" of Paris goals.
Yes, but: The UN report and others consistently show the most important thing is cutting fossil fuel emissions by deploying clean energy — including mature sources like solar — much faster.
- Most CDR experts agree. And Sacca notes both mitigation and removal are key (and uses a delightfully evocative analogy seven paragraphs in).
Threat level: Growing focus on CDR is nonetheless worrying people including prominent climate scientist Michael Mann of Penn State.
- He'd prefer to see the money spent on speeding clean energy use. Mann told CNBC there's "no evidence" that CDR can scale in time.
- Mann tells Axios he's concerned that focus on CDR, along with ideas like unproven geoengineering, distract from the need for near-term clean energy and emissions-cutting policies.
Separately, Greenpeace USA research manager Tim Donaghy says via email, “Funding and investments must prioritize proven mitigation solutions like a rapid transition to renewable energy sources."
- He's concerned about using CDR to compensate for the temporary overshoot of the goal of limiting warming to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels.
- "Returning to 1.5°C would not undo the irreversible impacts triggered by then," he notes, a risk the UN report pointed to as well.