📰 When The Guardian headlines carbon removal - you know the climate conversation is changing.

👀 I had to rub my eyes to believe it. The Guardian, not necessarily the most pro-CDR media outlet, highlights the need for carbon removal scale up as its top global news item.

🌐 Yesterday, I shared Johan Rockström’s excellent pre-COP30 article that we need 600Gt of CDR this century. He was now joined by more leading climate scientists in this Guardian piece.

📣 Their message is clear: to avoid climate tipping points and reverse overshoot, we will need hundreds of gigatons of CDR. Rockström also argues that the hashtag#COP30 presidency should put carbon removal in its declarations to focus attention on the risks and costs ahead.

Now, to pre-empt the comments I got yesterday (and which keep coming up):

📉The priority is and will have to be emission reductions. No one is claiming CDR is a silver bullet.

🤏 No, CDR is not diverting funding from reductions. In fact, less than 0.15% of global climate finance went to CDR in 2024, vs 99.85% to reductions.

🏗️ Yes, trees and nature will play a big role, but they cannot do the job alone. Most scientists agree that the majority of the scale-up will have to come from technological CDR.

🤝 I feel this COP could be a turning point for CDR, and finally solidify its space as an absolutely essential component of how we fight global warming. Keen to see how the COP Presidency will translate these developments into tangible action.

❓ What is your take? Are we finally getting there?

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