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While Verra and Gold Standard debate methodology updates, the EU quietly did something no government has done before: it created a government-backed certification label for carbon removal credits. The Carbon Removals and Carbon Farming Regulation (CRCF) — adopted in December 2024, with first certification methodologies published in February 2026 — establishes a voluntary framework for certifying carbon removals and soil emissions reductions. What Makes This Different#Every existing carbon credit certification (Verra’s VCS, ICVCM’s Core Carbon Principles, Puro.earth) is run by private organizations. The CRCF is the first where: ...

The European Commission has approved €260 million ($298M) in Belgian state aid for the Kairos@C carbon capture and storage project in Antwerp. The project, run by Air Liquide and BASF, will capture CO₂ from hydrogen, ammonia, and ethylene oxide production, then transport it for permanent geological storage beneath the North Sea. Scale and Timeline#Over a projected 15-year operating period, the project is expected to prevent roughly 20 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions from entering the atmosphere. ...

Frontier — the advance market commitment (AMC) backed by Stripe, Alphabet, Shopify, Meta, and McKinsey Sustainability — has opened applications for its 2026 Innovation program. The program sits within Frontier’s broader commitment to purchase more than $1 billion worth of permanent carbon removal between 2022 and 2030. What’s on Offer#Two tracks: Prepurchases ($250K–$1.5M): Upfront funding to help early-stage projects move from lab to field deploymentR&D grants ($250K–$750K): Support for research tackling critical technical challengesApplications are rolling, with selections expected twice during 2026. ...

Concrete is responsible for roughly 8% of global CO₂ emissions. Now a UK partnership has shown it can be carbon-negative. Holcim UK and Canary Wharf Group (CWG) have produced what they’re calling the UK’s first net-zero concrete, using biochar derived from spent coffee grounds collected from Canary Wharf coffee shops and coppiced hardwood. The Numbers#The initial trial pours in April 2025 achieved an 80% reduction in net Global Warming Potential (GWP A1–A3) compared to traditional CEM I concrete — landing at 69 kgCO₂e/m³. ...

Friday the 13th turned out to be a big day for carbon removal science. Two major ERW publications, a municipal biochar first, and corporate buyers continuing to stack their portfolios. Here’s everything we covered — and what else moved. Today on CaptainDrawdown#🧪 CDR Misconception #1: “Carbon Removal Is Just an Excuse to Keep Polluting”#We launched a new Friday series tackling the most common CDR objections head-on. The data tells a clear story: the biggest CDR buyers — Microsoft ($1B+), Stripe ($15M/yr), Swiss Re, Shopify — are also the companies that have already made the deepest emission cuts. IPCC AR6 says 1.5°C pathways need 6–16 Gt CO₂/yr of removal by 2050. This isn’t optional. ...

The carbon removal industry is supposed to scale to gigatonnes. But how many people actually work in it today? I went looking for the answer. And as far as I can tell, nobody has published one before. The major CDR reports — the State of CDR, CDR.fyi, ClimeFi’s market analyses — track tonnes removed, credits sold, dollars invested, companies founded. IRENA and the ILO track renewable energy employment (16.6 million jobs globally as of 2025). But carbon removal isn’t broken out as a category in any of these. Nobody, it seems, has tried to systematically count the people who actually do this work. ...

The Myth#“Carbon removal is just a license to pollute. Companies buy offsets so they don’t have to cut emissions.” You hear this from climate activists, policy wonks, even some scientists. It sounds reasonable. It’s also wrong — and the data proves it. Why It’s Wrong: The Math#Even the most aggressive mitigation scenarios can’t get us to safety without removal. The IPCC’s AR6 is unambiguous: ...

This one’s different. Not a tech startup. Not a corporate buyer. A local council in rural England just became the first UK local authority to partially own a biochar carbon removal system. Shropshire Council has partnered with Raft Energy and Biodynamic Carbon (a joint venture between the council and Carbon Hill Ltd.) to produce activated biochar and generate verified carbon removal credits. How it works#The system — already operational near Welshpool — integrates biochar production with existing anaerobic digestion (AD) infrastructure. Raft Energy’s product, ActiCH4R, is an activated biochar that gets added to biogas plants. The biochar: ...

One of the persistent concerns about enhanced rock weathering (ERW) is trace metals. You’re spreading crushed rock on farmland — what happens to the nickel, chromium, and other metals in that basalt? A new preprint on CDRxiv offers some of the most detailed field data yet. Short answer: no detectable increase in harmful metals after two years. The study#Researchers from Yale and collaborators applied 20 tonnes/hectare of iron- and aluminum-rich basalt to hayfield and pasture soils on a working Vermont dairy farm. They sampled agricultural soils (0–15 cm) twice before application and four times after, spanning fall 2022 through spring 2025. They also tracked a riparian corridor hydrologically connected to the treated fields. ...

ClimeFi just published its 2026 CDR market insights based on a December 2025 RFP that attracted 114 suppliers from 39 countries across 142 projects. The headline: durable CDR supply is getting tight. The numbers#Only 52% of projected 2026 supply is still unreserved — making it the most constrained year in the 2026–2030 windowAcross 2026–2030, 58% of total supply remains available66% of projects across all pathways (biochar, DACCS, BECCS, biomass, mCDR, mineralization) are now at commercialization stagePrices are converging within pathways as suppliers reach operations, secure verification, and build track recordsWhat’s driving the squeeze#Demand from corporate buyers is outpacing supply buildout. Companies like Microsoft, Boeing, LEGO, and Mercedes F1 are locking in multi-year deals — and the supply side simply can’t scale fast enough. ...