CDR library

🔥 The topic that keeps giving… how permanent is biochar? 📄 A paper recently appeared challenging that soil-applied biochar can be permanent for 1,000s of years. It generated lively discussions and several folks asked me for my take. 🧪 First things first: I am not a scientist, and this is a matter that needs to be settled 100% by science. However, the latest paper is explicitly a policy commentary. So allow me to weigh in. My main observations: ⚖️ The debate is not on wheth

🏛️ This is my core takeaway from Harry Smith PhD’s (University of East Anglia) excellent doctoral thesis analysing 41 government Long-Term Low Emissions Development Strategies (LT-LEDS) submitted to the UNFCCC. 🌍 As a reminder: LT-LEDS represent countries’ highest-level long-term climate strategies and therefore provide a clear window into current and future national climate policy. 📄 So what did the thesis find? First, a huge over-reliance on nature based removals vis-a-v

🌡️ The world’s leaders just reaffirmed their commitment to 1.5 degrees of global warming. With less than 6 years of carbon budgets left, this feels like a lofty goal to many. Even 2 degrees feels out of reach given current trajectories. Broadly speaking, humanity has three options to prevent climate catastrophe: 1️⃣ Reduce emissions 2️⃣ Remove emissions 3️⃣ Global cooling interventions 🏭 Before the 2018 IPCC 1.5°C report, most people and governments thought we could just re

😎 The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies today published a paper I co-authored with Raphaël Cario. (And yes: this is different from last week’s Oxford University paper on Global South CDR industrialisation - I know, we are on a roll!). The core message? 📣 Biochar carbon removal (BCR) is the most deployment-ready, lowest-risk durable CDR option available today and should be among the first options integrated into the EU and UK ETS. 🇪🇺 As a reminder: the European Commissi

👎 Let’s start with the bad news: Multilateral climate policy is failing us. 🪵 Yet again, a COP has been unable to deliver what we need most: a clear commitment to phase out of fossil fuels. To add insult to injury, a COP hosted in the Amazon also failed to propose a deforestation roadmap. ⚠️ This is inexcusable. It’s not aligned with science. And the world deserves better. 🏃 Yesterday, as I went on my angry post-COP run, I listened to (the very appropriately titled) Outrag

⛰️ The latest example: Patagonia, just published one of the most transparent, self-critical sustainability reports in the corporate world. They immediately got dragged across social media, including by several climate influencers on my feed. 😡 This is a pattern I keep seeing (including in CDR). Every time a company actually tries to change its industry, we tear it down. Meanwhile, the 99% doing absolutely nothing are left *untouched*. But if the companies leading the transit