Captain Drawdown’s daily logbook on every CDR story, paper, and expert voice — so you don’t have to read them all.

Three policy fronts moved this week, and together they expose CDR’s real regulatory risk. Switzerland bound companies to interim removal volumes. The Science Based Targets initiative opened comments on its Net Zero Standard 2.0. And a rural revolt against CO2 pipelines in the US and Canada got loud enough that Carbon Brief flagged it as the read of the week. Read together, the fight has shifted. It is no longer whether removals count. It is whether demand-side rules will force buyers to procure tonnes before the physical infrastructure to deliver them is socially permitted.

Start with Switzerland. Robert Hoglund’s write-up describes the first national regulation binding companies to interim CDR milestones, not just an end-state net zero target. That matters because it decouples the demand signal from whether supply exists at any given price. A milestone in 2030 is a milestone in 2030. If tonnes are short, buyers still owe the number.

Then look at SBTi. Hoglund’s second piece argues the draft Net Zero Standard 2.0, as written, will not significantly increase CDR demand because interim targets do not cover total removal needs across a company’s transition. The comment window is open. Whatever emerges will define compliance-grade demand for hundreds of the world’s largest emitters.

Now the supply-side counterweight. DeSmog, amplified by Carbon Brief, documents unusual coalitions organizing to block CO2 transport pipelines across rural Canada and the US. Carbon Brief (@carbonbrief.org on Bluesky) called it a “recommended read” this week, which is a mainstream climate outlet signaling that the social-license fight has become the story. Any policy-driven demand for engineered removals eventually needs pipes, wells, and neighbors who tolerate them.

The definitional problem makes the pipeline fight worse. Chris Bataille (@chrisbataille.bsky.social on Bluesky) puts it bluntly: “all the mostly fake post combustion CCS projects have diverted energy from the concentrated CO2 opportunities that do exist,” including limestone calcination, chemicals, and CDR. When policy lumps legitimate removal infrastructure with discredited post-combustion capture on coal and gas plants, the rural coalitions correctly refuse to distinguish. That is a policy-drafting failure with physical consequences at the permit hearing.

Europe is heading the same way. The Negative Emissions Platform argues that separate member-state removal targets are essential to a credible EU post-2030 framework. Fine on paper. But jurisdictional targets mean the same fragmented permitting environment that stalls pipelines will decide whether member states hit binding shares. And Hoglund notes elsewhere that shipping and aviation frameworks currently exclude CDR from compliance pathways. If those rules flip, demand materializes overnight in sectors with no domestic removal supply chain.

Here is the tension. Regulators are writing binding interim CDR demand into law faster than developers can secure the transport, storage, and community consent needed to deliver the tonnes those laws will require. Demand is racing ahead of social license.

And enforcement is the other blade. David Roberts (@volts.wtf on Bluesky) reflected this week that a state law mandating a carbon-free electricity system by 2045 did not stop utilities from doubling down on gas: “Laws mean nothing without credible, visible enforcement.” The same logic applies to Swiss milestones and SBTi 2.0. A binding interim target with weak enforcement produces a compliance narrative, not tonnes.

So what should CDR sellers do. If you are pricing offtakes off a compliance thesis, you are underwriting two risks the market rarely models. First, permitting risk on the delivery infrastructure the tonnes will move through. Second, enforcement risk on the rule that created the demand. Buyers signing 2027-2030 offtakes on the assumption that Swiss-style milestones, SBTi’s final Standard 2.0, or EU member-state targets will translate directly into deliverable, compliance-grade removals should be pressure-testing both. Developers who lock in social license early hold the leverage. Those who cannot will discover their pipeline is a spreadsheet, not a project. I’ve written before on why engineered pathways beyond trees need durable infrastructure, and the point applies here in reverse: no infrastructure, no durability, no compliance tonne.

Watch two things. The SBTi Net Zero Standard 2.0 comment period. And any Swiss implementing regulations that specify whether corporate milestone tonnes can be sourced from imports or must be domestic. That single design choice will decide whether the North American pipeline revolts become a binding constraint on European compliance demand, or a problem someone else’s jurisdiction has to solve.

Citations

  1. Substack (marginalcarbon) — first national regulation binding companies to interim CDR milestones — Substack post
  2. Substack (marginalcarbon) — will not significantly increase CDR demand — Substack post
  3. Buff — amplified by Carbon Brief
  4. Bluesky — @carbonbrief.org on Bluesky — Bluesky post
  5. Bluesky — @chrisbataille.bsky.social on Bluesky — Bluesky post
  6. Negative Emissions — separate member-state removal targets are essential
  7. Substack (marginalcarbon) — shipping and aviation frameworks currently exclude CDR — Substack post
  8. Bluesky — @volts.wtf on Bluesky — Bluesky post