The Carbon Removal Scoop

In this episode of The Carbon Removal Scoop, Eve Tamme and Sebastian Manhart sit down with Danny Cullenward, Senior Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania's Kleinman Center for Energy Policy, on his second visit to the Scoop. The conversation grew out of a remark Danny made at Carbon Gap's Carbon Removal Policy Summit in Brussels in September, and it lands on an issue the carbon removal community has barely started to absorb: how the Greenhouse Gas Protocol will count the carbon in forests. Danny, who resigned from the Protocol's Independent Standards Board over the dispute, argues the stakes reach far beyond forestry.At the centre are two competing proposals. Scientists on the technical working group backed activity-based accounting, which compares a harvest with what would have happened without it, much as voluntary market forest methodologies do. Industry voices backed the managed land proxy, borrowed from how countries report to the UN climate convention, which Danny says would let companies book removals for almost any wood harvest. He walks through how averaging across a whole sourcing region can turn felling trees in Poland into a carbon removal on paper, and why he thinks the proposal's extra safeguards change very little.Eve and Sebastian also press on the process behind the fight, and on where things stand now. No decision has been made: the Protocol's request for information on forest carbon accounting is open until 1 February 2027, while an ISO standard that Danny says implements the industry approach in all but name has already been approved, and the two bodies are working to harmonise their standards. With mandatory disclosure in California and the EU leaning on the Protocol, whatever gets decided will not stay voluntary for long.They close on what this means for anyone producing durable removals. Tune in to hear why Danny calls this an existential risk for the carbon removal industry, and who he thinks needs to speak up before the comment window closes.LINKSEve Tamme: LinkedIn and WebsiteSebastian Manhart: LinkedIn and WebsiteDanny Cullenward: Bluesky and WebsiteKleinman Center for Energy Policy: WebsiteForest Carbon Accounting in the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (Kleinman Center webinar, 22 September 2026)Governing the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (Danny Cullenward, Kleinman Center, April 2026)Danny Cullenward's resignation letter (June 2026)GHG Protocol: Forest carbon accounting proposals and supporting materialsGHG Protocol: Land Sector and Removals Standard and Forest Carbon Accounting Request for Information (open until 1 February 2027)ISO 13391-1:2025 Wood and wood-based products: Greenhouse gas dynamicsSourceMaterial: Lobbyists push for declaration that felling trees helps the climateBloomberg: Dispute Over Counting Forest Carbon Roils Global Standard-SetterHeatmap: Tensions Mount at Greenhouse Gas Protocol as Scientist Resigns in ProtestCarbon Removal Policy SummitPrevious Scoop Episode: CDR and Credibility: Unpacking Reversal Rules Under Article 6.4 — with Danny Cullenward

In this episode of The Carbon Removal Scoop, Sebastian Manhart sits down with Rudy Kahsar, Principal at RMI and a founding member of its carbon removal team, to dig into the New Frontiers Report for CDR. The report traces up to three decades of progress across 14 carbon removal approaches to work out where the next breakthroughs could come from, and Rudy's answer to the question he gets asked most, which pathway to go all in on, is not the one most people expect.Rudy makes the case that the technologies doing most of the removing in 2050 may not exist yet, and that breakthroughs tend to arrive when experts from one field wander into another. Policy sits outside the report's scope, but his message to policymakers is clear: rather than writing rigid rules around one or two of today's approaches, set aside some funding and regulatory attention for the approaches nobody has invented yet. Sebastian, who has long argued against picking winners this early, needs little convincing.The conversation then turns to the numbers. RMI built bottom-up cost stacks for every approach across eight shared categories, using generative AI for the first pass before testing it with companies and experts, and Rudy explains why the future cost stacks are aspirational scenarios rather than predictions. Sebastian contrasts that transparency with the black-box cost estimates that have made their way into the EU ETS proposal.They close on some of the report's boldest bets, from engineered crops that lock carbon away more durably to the convergence of AI, drones and sensors, and on direct air capture, where Rudy is blunt about cost. Tune in to hear why he thinks an outdoor clothing brand could be an unlikely ally for carbon removal.LINKSSebastian Manhart: LinkedIn and WebsiteRudy Kahsar: LinkedIn and RMI profileRMI: WebsiteThe New Frontiers Report for CDR (RMI, October 2026)RMI: Beyond the First Frontier: What Comes Next for Carbon RemovalMining's Untapped Removals Opportunity — with Cara MaesanoWhat Does CDR Actually Cost in Europe? — with Hansjörg Lerchenmüller and Eadbhard Pernot

In this episode of The Carbon Removal Scoop, Eve Tamme and Sebastian Manhart sit down with Cara Maesano, lead author of RMI's new report Mining and Carbon Dioxide Removal: A Responsible Path Forward, to dig into an industry the carbon removal world has barely talked about. Cara's starting point is striking: with the land, materials and engineering know-how that mines already have, almost every form of carbon removal could run on a mine site. But only one approach, she argues, really has to.Much of the conversation centres on surficial mineralisation, where reactive mine waste absorbs CO2 from the air and locks it away as stable minerals. Cara walks through the new research hub at Thetford Mines in Quebec, set up by Frontier and Carbon Removal Canada on a legacy of asbestos waste the local community wants gone, and explains how churning and activating tailings could push carbonation far deeper than the surface layer. She is clear that these are not cookie-cutter projects, and why.The hosts also press on the numbers. Cara is candid that the report's headline potential and $80 to $300 price range rest on theoretical and price-based estimates rather than hard cost data. On policy, she explains why permitting is a bigger hurdle than mining's vast footprint suggests: mines are permitted to do specific things with their waste and rarely deviate, which is why building carbon removal in from the very start of a mine's life may be easier than adding it later.They close on the business case. Thin profit margins per ton of CO2 mean miners are unlikely to buy durable removals, but they may have strong reasons to deliver them on site, from green premiums to tax credits to the environmental liabilities sitting in their tailings piles. Tune in to hear the one thing Cara says is holding the industry back.LINKS:Eve Tamme: LinkedIn and WebsiteSebastian Manhart: LinkedIn and WebsiteCara Maesano: LinkedInRMI: WebsiteMining and Carbon Dioxide Removal: A Responsible Path Forward (RMI, August 2026): Frontier: Launching the Quebec Surficial Mineralization Hub Arca announces agreement with Microsoft for nearly 300,000 tonnes of durable carbon removalIsometric partners with Anglo American and ZeroEx on Project Earthstone The Carbon Curve: Canada's Next Industrial Play: The Mine That Stores Carbon

In this episode of The Carbon Removal Scoop, Eve Tamme moderates our fifth SHOWDOWN debate, live on stage at Carbon Unbound Europe in London. The motion takes on one of the hottest fault lines in European carbon removal policy: should Europe’s CDR strategy put BioCCS (biogenic carbon capture and storage) first?In the BioCCS corner, Kaja Voss, CEO and Founder of Inherit: an economist and believer in markets. Three-quarters of durable offtakes to date are already BioCCS, it sits lowest on the cost curve among high-durability solutions, and the pipelines and terminals it builds will serve other pathways later. Europe should pick that winner “on purpose rather than by accident.”In the tech neutrality corner, Alastair Collier, Chief R&D Officer at A Healthier Earth: “When you concentrate the technology, you concentrate the politics.” Pointing to Australia’s repeal of its carbon price, he warns that concentrating storage in a handful of member states and paying oil and gas companies to run it creates an easy target for climate sceptics.From Northern Lights and storage as a public utility to the CRCF (the EU’s Carbon Removals and Carbon Farming certification framework) and a closing call to look to China, the room had plenty to weigh before casting its vote. Listen to the end to find out who won.LINKS:Eve Tamme: Eve Tamme: LinkedIn and WebsiteKaja Voss: LinkedInInherit: WebsiteAlastair Collier: LinkedInA Healthier Earth: WebsiteCarbon Unbound Europe

In this episode of The Carbon Removal Scoop, Eve Tamme sits down with Delia Meth-Cohn, Co-founder of Rethinking Removals, to make sense of what happened to ISO 14060, the draft net zero standard for organisations. When Delia joined Sebastian in June, the draft had just opened for consultation. Since then it has drawn around 5,000 comments and failed its first ballot, a rare result at this stage of an ISO process.Delia explains why this vote was different. Participation was capped at four experts per country because of the level of interest, few national standards bodies abstained, and the draft fell well short of ISO's thresholds of two-thirds approval with no more than a quarter of votes against. She walks through what comes next, a second draft and two more votes, and why publication now looks closer to 2028 than mid-2027.Eve and Delia dig into why the draft felt rushed, why an ISO standard carries quasi-regulatory weight that SBTi does not, and how the ground is shifting underneath it, with ISO and the GHG Protocol rewriting the foundations of carbon accounting. Delia's challenge for the next round is to treat the comments as themes rather than wording, and to find the balance between flexibility and credibility without watering the standard down.The conversation closes on removals. Speaking personally, Delia sets out how the next draft might handle anticipated residual emissions and the gap between cheap credits and expensive removals, and has a pointed message for a removals community she suggests needs to rethink its approach.LINKS:Eve Tamme: LinkedIn and WebsiteDelia Meth-Cohn: LinkedInRethinking RemovalOur previous episode, Inside the ISO Net Zero Standard with Delia Meth-Cohn:ISO/DIS 14060 Net Zero Aligned OrganizationsTrellis, ISO members send net-zero draft back for revisionsSBTi Corporate Net-Zero Standard V2.0 ISO and GHG Protocol partnership on unified carbon accounting standards

In this episode of The Carbon Removal Scoop, Sebastian Manhart sits down with Julia Reichelstein, co-founder and CEO of Vaulted Deep, and Tyler Manchester, Head of Voluntary Carbon at CFP Energy, to get the inside story of Vaulted's $35 million debt facility from Mediobanca. Julia explains why Vaulted grew on equity for its first two sites and why, with a delivery track record and a pipeline of new sites, it has now reached what she calls the "just add water" stage where debt is the right capital.Tyler explains why this is CFP Energy's first debt transaction in carbon removal after two decades in carbon markets, and what it took to get comfortable: a developer with a proven record, high-credit offtakers removing market risk, and an insurer covering the residual project risk that institutional lenders expect. He is open about who else can get through the door, including the rough minimum loan size CFP will consider, and why he thinks the market's chicken-and-egg problem is finally starting to crack.Julia makes the case that bankability starts long before anyone talks to a bank. She describes how the fine print of an offtake contract, the page she once skipped past, became the page lenders scrutinised most, and recounts the working capital fight that pushed registries and buyers towards monthly crediting. Both credit Frontier for brokering the introduction and publishing offtake templates others can reuse.They close on policy. Every debt deal discussed in the episode closed outside Europe, and Tyler sets out what would change that: projectable revenue, ideally fixed forward prices or a liquid forward market. Sebastian lays down a challenge for the first European deal, and Tyler accepts it.LINKS:Sebastian Manhart: LinkedIn and WebsiteJulia Reichelstein: LinkedIn Tyler Manchester: LinkedIn Vaulted Deep: Website CFP Energy: Website (https://www.cfp.energy/)Vaulted Deep secures $35 million in debt financing Frontier offtake agreement template

In this episode of The Carbon Removal Scoop, Eve Tamme and Sebastian Manhart sit down with Alexander Mäkelä, Chief Policy Officer at Carbon Gap, to dig into the Policy Levers Library: a new living database of 165 policy levers across six policy families, unveiled at Carbon Gap's Carbon Removal Policy Summit in Brussels. Alex's starting point is blunt. The sector keeps reaching for the same few tools, contracts for difference, direct procurement, the EU ETS, and that may be a failure of imagination.Asked which lever Europe is leaving untouched, Alex lands on finance. Demand certainty dominates the conversation, but without bankability and capital ready to deploy, he argues, projects simply won't materialise. He makes the case for CDR debt that is as boring as renewables debt, and points to Stockholm Exergi's crowded capital stack as a sign of just how much it currently takes to get a BECCS project over the line.Eve and Sebastian also put the library itself under the microscope: why there is no impact score among its eleven criteria, how the team scored every lever using case studies from Europe, North America and the Global South, and where a policymaker handed the link should actually start. The hosts push for something the tool doesn't do yet, connecting policymakers with those who have already solved the same problem somewhere else.The conversation closes on advocacy, and why Alex thinks the sector is too reactive and too focused on Brussels when thousands of German municipalities alone have no plan for removals. Tune in to hear why Carbon Gap actively wants people to steal its work.LINKS:Eve Tamme: LinkedIn and WebsiteSebastian Manhart: LinkedIn and WebsiteAlexander Mäkelä: LinkedInCarbon Gap: WebsitePolicy Levers Library Carbon Removal Policy SummitOur episode recorded at the Carbon Removal Policy Summit

In this episode of The Carbon Removal Scoop, Eve Tamme and Sebastian Manhart sit down with James Screen, who until recently led the team designing carbon removal policy at the UK's Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. A year after the Scoop covered Alan Whitehead's independent review of greenhouse gas removals, James explains what the government's response actually is: not a grand strategy, but a staging post that sets out the UK's direction of travel and leaves the hardest questions for the Carbon Budget 7 delivery plan.James is candid in sharing his personal views about where the response parts ways with the review. He explains why there is little political appetite to reopen what net zero means by adopting geological net zero, the outlook on woodland in the UK ETS, and reads the new "as soon as practicable" timeline for removals in the UK ETS against the backdrop of possible UK and EU ETS linking.The conversation then turns to the GGR business models. James walks through how carbon contracts for difference sit on top of the network support model in clusters like Liverpool Bay, why he thinks the model can work for both voluntary and ETS sales, and why taxpayer subsidy cannot be the enduring answer. Sebastian and Eve also find themselves on opposite sides of whether the UK and Europe are making too narrow a bet on BioCCS and DAC.They close on the reshuffle that followed the response, with James explaining why he sees continuity rather than radical change, and why the story of solar and offshore wind gives him real cause for optimism.LINKS:Eve Tamme: LinkedIn and WebsiteSebastian Manhart: LinkedIn and WebsiteJames Screen: LinkedInIndependent review on greenhouse gas removals: government responseIndependent Review of Greenhouse Gas Removals by Alan Whitehead

In this quarterly catch up, Eve Tamme and Sebastian Manhart swap the guest chair for each other and look back at three busy months in carbon removal policy, with a few disagreements along the way.They start with the EU ETS review and the joint statement from Europe's five CDR associations, which Sebastian helped coordinate. He shares some of the background scoop on where the associations lined up and where they didn't, from biochar and the link to the Carbon Removal Certification Framework to whether international credits belong in the ETS at all. Eve draws on her experience of the last time international credits entered the system, and Sebastian previews his first academic paper on what a credible international credit portfolio might actually cost.Then comes the bigger question: is Europe putting all its eggs in the BioCCS basket, or is it six baskets? Sebastian worries that newer and potentially cheaper approaches are being left behind, while Eve makes the case for backing the projects that can deliver at scale now, and pushes back on the idea that all of Europe's CO2 is heading to the North Sea.They close with a reality check on the EU buyers coalition, where the usual optimist and sceptic swap roles, slow progress on durable removals under Article 6.4, and why the headlines out of New York Climate Week may not tell the whole story for carbon removal finance.LINKS:Eve Tamme: LinkedIn and WebsiteSebastian Manhart: LinkedIn and WebsiteJoint statement from five CDR associations on the EU ETS review Mapping conflicts in carbon removal narratives (Prütz et al., Nature portfolio)MEP Emma Wiesner: Let EU ETS Operators buy CDR DirectlySebastian's preprint on international credit portfolios