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Felix Schenuit from the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) just published a policy paper through LibMod that makes a provocative argument: CDR is politically fragile, and the way to protect it is to stop treating it as a carbon accounting exercise and start treating it as industrial policy. The Core Problem The paper’s central concern is “climate backsliding” — the strategic weakening and rollback of climate policy that’s happening in multiple countries. When net-zero commitments erode, CDR loses its political rationale. After all, if you’re no longer committed to neutralizing residual emissions, why fund the technology to do it? ...

Lego isn’t playing around with carbon removal. The Danish toymaker just committed another DKK 18 million (~€2.4M) to four CDR projects, pushing its total CDR investment to DKK 54 million ($7.9M). What’s interesting isn’t just the money — it’s the portfolio approach. Four Projects, Four Pathways Working with carbon removal platform ClimeFi and Climate Impact Partners, Lego is spreading bets across fundamentally different removal methods: 1. Biomass geological storage — injecting organic waste slurry deep underground. Permanent storage, no reversal risk. ...

Carbon Gap and Global Factor just published a Carbon Removal Readiness Assessment (CRRA) for Spain, and the verdict is clear: massive potential, minimal policy infrastructure. Spain has geology, solar irradiation, coastal access, and industrial clusters that make it a natural fit for multiple CDR pathways. What it doesn’t have is a national CDR strategy. What Spain Brings to the Table The CRRA identifies several advantages Spain has for scaling carbon removal: ...

ClimeFi just dropped its 2026 durable carbon removal market insights, and the headline number is striking: 66% of CDR projects across all pathways are now at the commercialization stage. That’s across biochar, DACCS, BECCS, biomass approaches, marine CDR, and mineralization. Two-thirds of the industry has moved past R&D and pilots into actual commercial operations. The Supply Shift Perhaps more important than the commercialization milestone is where the growth is coming from. ClimeFi signals that 2026 credit issuances are expected to shift away from the dominant biomass-based removals toward a more diversified supply: ...

Five original stories today, plus four we’re watching. Here’s what moved in carbon removal. What We Covered Today 🌊 First Open-Water OAE Test Absorbs 10 Tonnes of CO₂ The LOC-NESS project delivered the ocean alkalinity enhancement field’s biggest milestone yet. Scientists from Woods Hole pumped 65,000 litres of sodium hydroxide into the Gulf of Maine — the first EPA-permitted open-water OAE experiment. Early results: up to 10 tonnes of CO₂ absorbed, local pH restored to preindustrial 8.3, and no significant harm to marine life observed. This is the data the OAE credit market has been waiting for. ...

A few days ago, I launched the CDR Company Directory based on Grant Faber’s comprehensive list of carbon dioxide removal companies. It was a solid starting point — but a static one. A list of names and methods doesn’t tell you which companies are still building, which ones have gone quiet, and which may no longer exist. So I went through every single one of them. What I did I investigated all 819 companies using multiple approaches — and it took me hours. Plural. Many of them. ...

Europe’s flagship climate policy instrument is suddenly in the crosshairs — from inside Europe. Italy’s industry minister has called for a temporary suspension of the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS), arguing that carbon costs are inflating electricity prices and hurting industrial competitiveness. At a meeting of “Friends of Industry” countries in Brussels, the push was framed as a practical necessity while the system gets reformed. The European Commission pushed back hard. Commissioners stated the EU is “not in an energy crisis as severe as 2022” and rejected talk of suspending the ETS or releasing emergency oil stocks. The current situation, they argue, doesn’t warrant dismantling the cornerstone of EU climate policy. ...

For four days last August, the waters 50 miles off the Massachusetts coast turned maroon. On purpose. Scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) pumped 65,000 litres of sodium hydroxide — tagged with a red dye for tracking — into the Gulf of Maine as part of the LOC-NESS project, the first large-scale open-water test of ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE). The experiment, licensed by the US EPA, took place in an area commonly fished for cod, haddock, and lobster. ...

Ethylene is everywhere. Plastics, packaging, antifreeze, construction materials — over 150 million tonnes are produced globally each year, almost entirely from fossil fuels. Every tonne of ethylene made the conventional way releases roughly a tonne of CO₂. A new process developed at Northwestern University flips that equation. The Breakthrough In a paper published in Nature Synthesis on March 10, researchers led by Ted Sargent describe a bismuth-copper alloy catalyst that converts CO₂ captured from ambient air directly into ethylene through an electrochemical process. ...

The Hajar Mountains in Oman contain one of the world’s largest exposed formations of peridotite — a rock from Earth’s mantle that naturally reacts with CO₂ and locks it away as solid mineral carbonate. The Semail Ophiolite alone has sequestered over one billion tonnes of CO₂ through this process, over millions of years. Now someone’s trying to speed it up. 44.01, an Omani startup named after the molecular weight of carbon dioxide, has signed a concession with Oman’s Ministry of Energy and Minerals for the world’s first commercial-scale peridotite mineralization project at Al Qabil in the Hajar Mountains. ...