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CDR Daily Digest — 2026-05-18

The buyer concentration problem is now structural Durable carbon removal logged a record 2.3 million tonnes of purchases in Q1 2026. That is real growth. But one buyer, Microsoft, drove 43% of it. Strip Microsoft out and the market looks roughly flat. Every other piece of today’s news, from a Climeworks pitch to AI hyperscalers to the slow grind of EU rulemaking on credit substitution, traces back to this same fact: durable CDR still has one anchor customer, and the field’s near-term survival depends on widening that base before the next funding winter. ...

Durable CDR hits record 2.3Mt in Q1 2026 — but Microsoft drives 43%

CDR.fyi just published 2026 Q1 Durable CDR Market Update - From Promise to Proof. CDR.fyi’s Q1 2026 update finds 2.3 million tonnes of durable CDR contracted, roughly 5.6x Q1 2025 volume. Microsoft anchored the quarter with a single 1-million-tonne deal, while 112+ other buyers contracted 1.3 million tonnes between them, the third-highest non-Microsoft quarterly figure on record. Biochar dominated, making up 93% of contracted volume and all top five transactions. Deliveries reached 145K tonnes and retirements just over 100K tonnes, both second-highest on record, with deliveries up 67% year over year. Intermediaries facilitated 74% of contracted tonnes, a record share. ...

Climeworks CEO: Carbon removal belongs in AI infrastructure's price tag

Heatmap News just published The AI Boom Needs Carbon Removal. In an opinion piece for Heatmap News, Climeworks CEO Christoph Gebald contends that the rapid buildout of AI data centers is locking in new fossil fuel emissions, since natural gas is the power source that can be deployed fast enough to meet demand. He cites IEA projections that global data center electricity use could more than double to around 945 terawatt-hours by 2030, roughly equal to Japan’s current demand. With a five-year backlog for combined-cycle gas turbines, some operators are turning to more carbon-intensive single-cycle units. Gebald argues that carbon removal, including direct air capture and nature-based methods, should be priced into digital infrastructure as a complement to clean energy. ...

Captain's CDR Log #138: What Louisiana landowners and Brussels rulemakers are telling CDR about credit substitution

Captain Drawdown’s daily logbook on every CDR story, paper, and expert voice — so you don’t have to read them all. The critique, plainly stated “CDR governance gaps in treaty frameworks let credit substitution happen without consent or liability.” That is the spine of a recent legal analysis in CDR Approaches: Friends or Foes? on Völkerrechtsblog. Translated out of treaty language: today’s rules let a buyer in one jurisdiction discharge a climate obligation by paying for a ton stored in another, and the people who host the storage often had no seat at the table. ...

Week in CDR — 2026-W20

Captain Drawdown’s weekly Sunday selection — 20 candidate stories considered, 6-9 picked. Each link carries our 1-2 sentence take so you don’t have to click everything to know what’s there. The week’s connective tissue is infrastructure quietly being rebuilt around CDR — Frontier and Cascade Climate setting de facto methodology standards, Canada and the EU bolting compliance scaffolding into place, and the AI-data-center narrative hardening from talking point into actual capital allocation logic. Underneath that, a bankruptcy and a bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) warning paper offer useful counterweights to the build-out story. ...

CREW Carbon lands $25M Series A to scale wastewater emissions cuts

Carbon Herald just published CREW Carbon Secures $25M To Scale Its Wastewater Treatment Optimization Technology. Carbon Herald reports that CREW Carbon raised $25 million in an oversubscribed Series A round aimed at scaling its technology for optimizing wastewater treatment operations. The approach targets emissions reductions and efficiency gains at municipal and industrial treatment facilities, a sector that is often overlooked in climate discussions despite its energy intensity and process emissions. The funding is expected to support commercial deployment and team growth as the company works with utility partners. Specific investor names, deployment timelines, and measured CO2-equivalent reductions per facility are detailed in the original article. ...

Captain's CDR Log #137: Canada's mineralization hub meets a weakened carbon price in the same week

Captain Drawdown’s daily logbook on every CDR story, paper, and expert voice — so you don’t have to read them all. The consensus: Canada is the new CDR frontrunner Carbon Removal Canada spent the week telling anyone who would listen that the country is home to the world’s first surficial mineralization hub, with the potential to “catalyze billions in economic activity.” The industry body, federal agencies, and a chorus of developers working ultramafic mine tailings in British Columbia and Quebec all share the same line: Canadian geology plus Canadian permitting plus Canadian grids equals global CDR leadership. Frontier buyers nod along. So do the trade press. ...

EU CBAM Draft Caps International Carbon Credits at 10% of Deductions

Carbon Herald just published Draft EU CBAM Rules Allow Carbon Credit Deductions, But Cap International Credits At 10%. Carbon Herald reports that the European Commission has launched a public consultation on draft rules clarifying, for the first time, how carbon credits can be used under the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism. The draft allows importers to deduct carbon credits against their CBAM liabilities, but limits the use of international credits to a 10% share. The clarification addresses a long-standing question about how foreign carbon pricing instruments and offsets interact with the EU’s border carbon regime. The consultation period gives industry, governments and civil society a window to respond before the rules are finalized. ...

Captain's CDR Log #136: Supplier-side catalyst capital meets buyer-side payment deferral in the same week

Captain Drawdown’s daily logbook on every CDR story, paper, and expert voice — so you don’t have to read them all. When the same week delivers two carbon-credit financing announcements that both claim to “unlock” the market, the question is whether they’re solving the same problem. They aren’t. One is trying to manufacture supply that doesn’t exist yet. The other is trying to smooth payment on supply that already does. That asymmetry tells you a lot about where CDR finance is going. ...

Louisiana locals push back as federal CCS subsidies hit state veto points

Carbon Herald just published Carbon Capture Debate Intensifies In Louisiana. Carbon Herald covers the ongoing fight in Louisiana over carbon capture and storage, which has emerged as a flashpoint in the state’s 2024 legislative session. The piece outlines competing pressures from industry developers pursuing CCS projects along the Gulf Coast, local communities raising concerns about pipelines and underground injection wells, and lawmakers weighing new restrictions and permitting rules. It situates the debate against Louisiana’s heavy petrochemical footprint and the federal incentives, including 45Q tax credits, that have drawn project proposals to the state. The article tracks how parish-level opposition and proposed bills could reshape the regulatory path for CCS deployment. ...