🇪🇺 Does the EU Buyers Club have what it takes?

🚀 Yesterday, hundreds of carbon removers gathered in Brussels and online for the launch of the EU Buyers Club. Let’s start with the big, positive news: the Club has launched!

🧨 In typical European understatement, there was no big bang, even some people in the room missed this important detail: there is now an open group of buyers, working together with the European Commission, selecting eligible European projects. The first offtakes are expected this year.

The day itself - while packed with fascinating discussions and panels - did not, however, deliver on a number of things I was hoping for:

1️⃣ Use cases: this remains - by far - the biggest uncertainty and roadblock for buyers. 

2️⃣ Funding: the plan is to align behind existing mechanisms such as the Innovation Fund and the European Innovation Council. No additional money from the Commission.

3️⃣ Buyers: no new buyers announced.

🏭 Altogether, I also left feeling that the plan is to rally behind a very small number of BioCCS/BECCS projects only. Which is a viable approach, just not one I deem ideal for where CDR stands in 2026.

👀 Now this is the public version and what anyone in the room without insider info would have taken away. 

💶 I do understand that there is much more to the Buyers Club than what we heard and saw. Hopefully this information will soon make its way into the public, as it would likely give investors and CDR entrepreneurs much more confidence in the direction this Club is going.

📣 So I would summarise yesterday like this: the Buyers Club has launched. Let’s see it as an important first step of many. It provides a foundation on which can and will be built. Those who expected major breakthroughs announced yesterday left disappointed. But more good things will likely follow, and hopefully in the near term already.

🎙️ Eve Tamme and I recorded an on the ground live analysis of the day where we captured what we heard, what we liked, and what we were missing. This special CDR Policy Scoop episode is already out: https://lnkd.in/eP-FGcKK

💭 Check it out and let us know what you think. It is raw, unfiltered, fresh perspectives. No edits, no cuts. Just what Eve and I were thinking during the event.

👏 A huge thanks to the organisers at the European Commission, as well as Carbon Gap and Carbon Management Europe, who organised a terrific event.

⏩ Looking forward to what is to come.

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