How do you take a completely invisible gas, store it away for millennia, and show that what you’re doing is actually working as intended?  

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These were some of the questions posed in Carbonfuture’s latest webinar, How Governments Can Ensure Trust and Transparency in Carbon Removal. Hosted by Carbonfuture’s Senior Policy Advisor Sebastian Manhart, our panel discussed the steps being taken at the governmental level to ensure the integrity of the carbon dioxide removal (CDR) industry. Covering current policy developments and the infrastructure being built to ensure trust in carbon removal across the U.S. and in Europe, the webinar covered topics like the key role of independent digital Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (dMRV) in carbon removal policy, how to balance the role of the public and private sectors in building trust throughout the entire industry, and how these differing approaches could play out over the long term.

We were joined by a panel of policy experts from both sides of the Atlantic, with Noah Deich, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Carbon Management at the US Department of Energy, Rodica Avornic, Associate Policy Director for Carbon Gap, Anu Khan, the Founder and Executive Director for the Carbon Removal Standards Initiative, and Fabien Ramos, Carbon Removals Lead at the European Commission.

Here are three takeaways from the webinar:

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CDR Is More Than Technology, It’s a Product That Includes dMRV

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Innovations are happening every day in the carbon removal industry that hold great promise in advancing the effectiveness of removal methods while driving down costs. However, evaluating the impact of these technologies will be critical in ensuring their implementation. As Noah said, “If you have the best Carbon Removal technology in the world, it could be super cheap and super scalable, but you do not have good MRV, nobody's going to pay you to actually develop that solution.” Building the business case for developing the industry and the CDR products that will support it, whether in the public or private sector, requires robust MRV.  

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Innovation in MRV Is Vital in the Public and Private Sectors

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The private sector is often seen as an incubator of innovation, but governments have a role to play as well, especially when setting the guardrails for an industry. Supporting the academics and scientists who are developing accurate models is just one way that governments can enable more effective MRV. This can also help drive down costs, especially when brought to the private sector. According to Anu, “There's a lot of work driven by the voluntary carbon market and suppliers who are in the space today, around [developing] sensors and model[s] to drive down the cost of MRV, while also increasing the rigor and reducing uncertainty. I think governments can play a really big role in supporting that, as well as provide clarity around data standardization.”

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There’s also the potential for governments to help build support on the ground for deployment in the form of technical assistance programs. As Anu said, “Connecting the dots [of engaging with CDR] can be challenging, due to the absence of technical assistance infrastructure. Governments already have this kind of programming in other areas. I think that's another place where governments can support the deployment of solutions and the MRV that goes alongside them.”

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Trust Must Be Earned, and That Requires Government to Foster Development in the Right Way

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In today’s world, trust and transparency are always in question, and the carbon removal industry is no exception. Developing an industry where buyers can purchase with confidence is a vital component to scaling CDR to climate-relevant levels, and here, governments must be a key player. According to Rodica, “Governments have a crucial role in fostering trust, by aligning national carbon accounting methods with global standards, mitigating potential issues around double counting at a global level.”

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As we scale durable carbon removal, we must be sure to promote the development of the industry in the right way. Going too fast too soon, without proper consideration and deliberation of the critical issues at play, could serve as a detriment to the ongoing development of the industry. As Fabien said, “Things can go wrong at all levels, so we really need to pay specific attention to try and not introduce a lack of trust from the beginning. That's why in the development of the methodology, we also need to look very closely at what the science is telling us: to have experts and academics looking at our methodology, and to put this in place only when we have a certain amount of certainty on what we are doing.”

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That said, signs of the shift to durable carbon removal are already happening in both the public and private sectors. Corporate innovators are already making durable CDR an integral component of their sustainability portfolios, and it’s something that any corporate leader should be evaluating today, according to Noah: “The fact that companies have figured out how to take the same overall spend, but shift away from some of the low price and potentially lower quality offsets into these high-integrity Carbon Removal credits is something that I think everyone can be doing today.”

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Looking to build a de-risked carbon removal portfolio to address your net-zero goals? Get in touch with a Carbonfuture expert today.