The CDR Policy Scoop

In this episode of The CDR Policy Scoop, Sebastian Manhart sits down solo with Vikrum Aiyer, Head of Global Energy and Policy and Climate Policy and External Affairs at Heirloom, to trace the last eighteen months of US carbon removal policy. It starts with a survival story: Heirloom and partner Climeworks were awarded roughly 600 million dollars for a Louisiana direct air capture hub under the bipartisan infrastructure law, funding that looked shaky the moment the Trump administration began reviewing Biden era spending. Vikrum explains how a coalition of economic development groups, workforce organizations, and elected officials kept the project alive by leading with jobs, exports, and energy security rather than climate targets.

The conversation turns to 45Q, the tax credit that pays up to 180 dollars per ton for durable removal. Vikrum details how a shift in EPA greenhouse gas reporting policy left the credit's verification framework in a temporary gap, with a Treasury safe harbor expiring and a new reporting structure still being negotiated alongside the Carbon Capture Coalition and industry peers. He credits the One Big Beautiful Bill Act with not just protecting 45Q but expanding its reach across more carbon management pathways.

Sebastian and Vikrum close on California, where the state's cap and trade extension folded in an 85 million dollar annual pot for decarbonization technologies, including CDR, and wrote CDR integration into statute for the first time. Vikrum lays out the live debate over whether emitters should invest directly in removal project capex or whether those dollars should flow to communities instead, and argues the market needs both credit purchases and direct investment to hit the scale carbon removal requires.

Links
Sebastian Manhart: LinkedIn and Website
Vikrum Aiyer: LinkedIn
Heirloom: Website
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In this episode, Eve Tamme digs into contracted durability with Luke Pritchard, Director at Beyond Alliance, a coalition of major carbon dioxide removal buyers.

Last month, Beyond Alliance published a white paper with RMI and the American Forest Foundation, developed with input from both engineered and nature based CDR developers, setting out what contracted durability could look like and how it fits into the wider policy landscape.

The conversation opens on why durability has stayed unresolved for so long. Luke explains that setting the threshold too low leaves open questions about who holds liability after the monitoring period ends, while setting it too high, without a mechanism like a permanence trust or horizontal stacking, locks nature based solutions out of the market entirely. Buffer pools and insurance, he argues, were never built to guarantee the long duration outcomes that durability requires on their own.

Eve and Luke get into what a permanence trust would actually cost, with Luke citing anecdotal buyer estimates of around 15 percent on top of the credit price, and the tension this creates: cheaper nature based credits paired with contracted durability could pull demand away from engineered removals unless separate price support policy exists. They also map contracted durability against the live policy moments where it could land next, from the Paris Agreement Crediting Mechanism and California's SB 905 process to the EU, SBTi's Net Zero Standard, and ICVCM's continuous improvement work.

The episode closes with a premortem: Luke's biggest worry is undercapitalization, a permanence trust that takes in too little up front, misjudges reversal risk, and runs out of money when it is needed most.

Links
Eve Tamme: LinkedIn and Website
Luke Pritchard: LinkedIn
Contracted Durability: A Framework for Performance Based Carbon Removal by Beyond Alliance, RMI, and American Forest Foundation.

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In this episode, Eve Tamme sits down with Carbon Gap’s ETS experts, Francesca Battesby and Louis Uzor ahead of the European Commission’s ETS proposal, expected on 17 July. CDR is about to gain access to the world’s biggest compliance market for carbon, and this conversation lays out what is actually at stake.

The discussion opens on the integration model: a public authority managing CDR procurement, or covered entities acting on their own. Francesca and Louis explain why a public authority could bring mandate and long term credibility, and they unpack the open question of credit vintage, including whether pre-2031 activity could be grandfathered in.

From there the conversation turns to where CDR sits relative to the ETS cap, and why Carbon Gap favours staying below the cap for now. They also tackle the price gap between DAC and BioCCS and EU allowances, pointing to the UK’s combined CfD and ETS model as a possible blueprint.

The episode closes on the numbers that will decide whether integration is meaningful: the Commission’s 75 megaton estimate for 2040, Isometric’s higher 100 megaton suggestion, and Carbon Gap’s own analysis of CDR’s share of ETS emissions. Francesca and Louis flag what to watch for on 17 July, from biochar and enhanced weathering to the EU’s 90 percent domestic reduction ambition.

Links:
Eve Tamme: LinkedIn and Website
Francesca Battersby: LinkedIn
Louis Uzor: LinkedIn
Carbon Gap, “Integrating CDR into the EU ETS” (June 2025)
Carbon Gap, “Divide to Deliver”
The State of Carbon Dioxide Removal, 3rd Edition (2026)
UK Government consultation, “Extending the UK ETS cap beyond 2030”

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In this episode of The CDR Policy Scoop, Sebastian Manhart and Eve Tamme sit down for their second quarterly, unscripted catch-up of the year, working through what is actually moving in CDR policy right now with no guest in the mix, just two co-hosts comparing notes.

The conversation opens on the member state CDR targets expected by the end of the year and why a patchwork of twenty seven national targets could be a net positive for the sector, forcing a wider range of technologies and approaches into play rather than funneling everyone toward the EU ETS. From there they turn to the ETS integration itself, unpacking a Potsdam Institute modeling exercise on how CDR volumes between forty and eighty megatons a year by twenty forty could stabilize carbon prices, and Sebastian previews a new peer reviewed paper on using ETS revenue to front load investment into removals through European Investment Bank bonds.

They then dig into aviation, a sector Sebastian and Eve agree the CDR community has been too quiet on. The ReFuelEU Aviation review looks unlikely to open the door to removals, and the two make the case for a coordinated push before the window closes. That leads into CORSIA, where enforcement turns out to be far weaker and far more geographically uneven than either expected, and where Sebastian argues the real opportunity may lie with nature based removals rather than durable ones.

The episode closes on Article 6.4 as the presumed foundation for future international credit quality criteria despite still-undefined removal methodologies, and on Norway's new NOACCS auction scheme, a sizable but narrowly targeted funding mechanism that raises questions about how well governments are learning from each other's programs.

Links
Eve Tamme: LinkedIn and Website
Sebastian Manhart: LinkedIn and Website
Ariadne dossier (Potsdam Institute) on CDR integration into the EU ETS
How Frontloaded ETS Revenues Can Close Europe’s Durable CDR Gap
NOACCS, a competitive auction scheme consultation on the scheme is now open until August 6th
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In this episode of The CDR Policy Scoop, Sebastian Manhart and Eve Tamme are joined by Kaya Axelsson, Research and Policy Fellow at Oxford Net Zero, just days after what she describes as the most anticipated Monday of her year: June 22, when both the ISO Net Zero Standard and the SBTi Corporate Net Zero Standard launched at London Climate Action Week. Kaya spent three years inside both standard-setting processes, and the conversation captures what this convergence moment actually means for companies, for carbon markets, and for carbon removal.

The episode opens on what Kaya calls the single global playbook. Her case: the two standards don't fundamentally contradict each other. ISO is wider in scope, internationally governed via WTO-compatible processes, and a natural tool for trade policy, green public procurement, and claims legislation, particularly in markets across Africa and Asia that SBTi has yet to reach. SBTi brings detailed near-term implementation guidance and the momentum of eleven thousand companies already signed up. Kaya explains how she sees companies using them together and what each does better than the other.

But she is not without concerns. The episode surfaces a significant one: a potential communication error in the SBTi standard that risks allowing companies to claim net zero alignment without ever setting a long-term net zero target. For CDR, the implications are direct. SBTi's decision not to require removals purchases before 2035 is, in Kaya's view, a cost-based rather than science-based call, and a missed opportunity to start scaling the supply of what companies will eventually need. ISO, by contrast, requires five-year removal milestones from the outset.

The conversation closes on what comes next: the governance of commodity certificates such as green steel, SAF, cement, which both standards now actively encourage companies to purchase. Kaya predicts this will be the defining debate at the next London Climate Action Week, and explains why getting the governance architecture right matters as much as the demand signal itself.

Links
Eve Tamme: LinkedIn and Website
Sebastian Manhart: LinkedIn and Website
Kaya Axelsson: LinkedIn and Website
ISO Net Zero Standard
SBTi Corporate Net Zero Standard
Robert Höglund & Claire Wigg’s: Exponential Roadmap InitiativeBuild the world your net zero target assumes

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