While one North American government is busy dismantling climate infrastructure, the other is quietly becoming a meaningful player in carbon dioxide removal.
Three data points from Canada tell a coherent story.
Climeworks chose Calgary for its Canadian headquarters. The Swiss direct air capture company — operator of the Mammoth facility in Iceland and one of the most credible DAC companies in the world — looked at North America and picked Calgary. That’s not a symbolic choice. It reflects real assessment of Canada’s regulatory environment, talent pipeline, and long-term policy stability.
Arca signed a major deal with Microsoft. Arca Climate’s approach uses autonomous rovers to accelerate carbon mineralization of mining waste — a genuinely scalable, low-energy pathway that leverages existing industrial footprints. A Microsoft-scale buyer signing with a Canadian CDR company signals that the Canadian supply chain is being taken seriously at enterprise procurement level.
Canada runs the world’s only active government CDR buying program. Through Natural Resources Canada’s standing offer mechanism, the government has committed to purchasing CDR credits across multiple methods — DACCS, BECCS, biochar, BiCRS, and enhanced mineralization. No other national government has operationalized this kind of direct demand signal.
The Contrast Is Not Subtle
South of the border, the IRA’s CDR incentives face political pressure, DOE programs have been cut, and the federal government’s stance on climate is openly hostile. The regulatory certainty that carbon removal companies need — multi-year purchase commitments, credible MRV frameworks, stable policy — has become unreliable.
Canada has none of those problems right now. That’s why companies building for a 10–20 year horizon are looking north.
What It Means for the Market
Government demand signals matter disproportionately at this stage of the CDR market. When a government commits to purchasing, it validates the credit quality, creates bankable revenue, and gives companies the certainty to raise capital for scaling. Canada’s standing offer does all three.
The Pembina Institute, which has closely tracked Canada’s CDR policy development, framed it plainly: “Canada’s carbon removal moment is here.” The combination of infrastructure investment, corporate deal flow, and government demand creation makes that assessment hard to dispute.
This isn’t a story about Canada being perfect. CDR in Canada still faces the same challenges as everywhere — scale, cost, MRV rigor, public acceptance. But the direction is right, and the momentum is real.
Via the Pembina Institute on Bluesky.