News

The International Energy Agency just dropped a data point that the carbon removal industry has been waiting for: CDR is officially one of the seven emerging energy sectors that have offset the decline in EV venture funding since 2021. In its State of Energy Innovation 2026 report, the IEA maps the full innovation pipeline — from early research to commercial-scale demonstration — and carbon removal sits alongside nuclear, next-gen geothermal, and critical minerals as the new magnets for venture capital. ...

New Scientist highlighted a growing body of research suggesting that spreading crushed basalt on farmland could absorb up to 1 billion tonnes of CO₂. Field trials in Queensland, Australia, are among the latest to generate real data. Nations like Brazil are already deploying enhanced rock weathering (ERW) at scale, partly because crushed silicate rock also reduces fertiliser costs. Big number. Important caveat: “could” is doing a lot of work in that headline. ...

Svante Technologies just acquired Carbon Alpha, picking up a BECCS project, a CO₂ pipeline, and a geological storage hub in Western Canada. The deal also brings something rarer: a genuine co-ownership partnership with the Meadow Lake Tribal Council (MLTC), which represents nine First Nations in Saskatchewan. The North Star Project#Carbon Alpha’s flagship project installs carbon capture at the existing MLTC Bioenergy Centre, which generates renewable heat and electricity by burning sustainable biomass from a neighbouring sawmill. Phase 1 targets 140,000 tonnes of CO₂ capture per year from the biogenic flue gas. ...

A provincial government in the Philippines just did something no one in Southeast Asia has done before: generated verified carbon credits from biochar production. Nueva Ecija’s “Project NuevaChar” converts rice husks — an agricultural waste product — into biochar. Puro.earth audited and validated the facility, confirming net CO₂ removal. In July 2025, Governor Aurelio Umali received the first carbon revenue remittance ever paid to a local government unit from biochar-based credits. ...

The first ship-based ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE) experiment just delivered results. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution poured 65,000 litres of sodium hydroxide into the Gulf of Maine in August 2025, and the findings are cautiously encouraging: 2–10 tonnes of CO₂ removed in four days, with up to 50 tonnes estimated total. No significant impact on marine life detected. Adam Subhas and his team presented these findings at the Ocean Sciences Meeting 2026 in Glasgow. “We can definitely say that there was additional CO₂ uptake as a result of this experiment,” Subhas said. ...

Kenya-based direct air capture company Octavia Carbon just locked in a new offtake agreement, facilitated by Carbon Direct. It’s the latest signal that demand for DAC credits from the Global South is real — and growing. Octavia’s Hummingbird pilot in the Kenyan Rift Valley has been running 24/5 since October 2025. Their Gen 2 system captures atmospheric CO₂ and stores it permanently underground through a partnership with carbon mineralization company Cella. They recently activated a cryogenic tank for liquid CO₂ storage — a meaningful technical milestone for any DAC operation, let alone one running in East Africa. ...

Boeing just signed one of the aviation sector’s largest carbon removal procurements ever: at least 40,000 tonnes of durable CDR through Carbonfuture, sourced from four biochar projects across the Global South. Full disclosure: Carbonfuture is a Carbon Drawdown Initiative portfolio company. We’ve been tracking their progress closely, and this deal validates exactly the kind of infrastructure the CDR market needs. Why This Matters#Aviation is one of the hardest sectors to decarbonize. Planes can’t run on batteries (not yet, anyway), and sustainable aviation fuels are still scaling up. So for residual emissions — particularly Scope 3 business travel — durable carbon removal is the only honest answer. ...

China released its 15th Five-Year Plan this week. The headline number: a 17% reduction in carbon intensity (CO₂ per unit of GDP) from 2026 to 2030, with a 3.8% cut targeted for this year alone. Sounds ambitious. It’s not. The Math Problem#Carbon intensity drops even if absolute emissions rise — you just need your economy to grow faster than your emissions. And that’s exactly what analysts expect to happen. ...

New research from Cornell University modelled the global adoption potential of enhanced rock weathering and landed on a striking number: 1.1 billion tonnes of CO₂ removed per year by 2100. That’s roughly 3% of current annual fossil fuel emissions — meaningful at planetary scale. The headline is exciting. The fine print is where the real story lives. What the Study Actually Shows#The Cornell team did something most ERW projections skip: they modelled adoption rates rather than just theoretical capacity. Using historical data on how fast farmers adopt new practices (like irrigation), they estimated a range of 350 million to 750 million tonnes per year by 2050, scaling to 700M–1.1 Gt by 2100. ...

The European Commission just did something no other jurisdiction has managed: it adopted the world’s first voluntary standard specifically for permanent carbon removals. Under the Carbon Removals and Carbon Farming (CRCF) Regulation, the Commission published certification methodologies covering three pathways: direct air capture with carbon storage (DACCS), biogenic emissions capture with storage (BioCCS), and biochar carbon removal (BCR). What This Means in Practice#Until now, permanent CDR projects in Europe operated in a regulatory grey zone. Buyers had no common framework for evaluating project quality. Developers had no certification path to demonstrate they met EU standards. That changes now. ...