S4 #2 | CDR Policy Deep Dive - Part 1: From Kyoto to Carbon Removal

Welcome to the first in a Carbon Removal Show three-part policy miniseries! We’re diving into the bureaucratic spaghetti of CDR policy - what it is, why we need it, and why pretending it doesn’t exist is no longer an option. It’ll be fun – we promise.

In this episode:

📜 Policy 101: What do we mean when we talk about carbon removal policy? Tom, Emily and their guests unpack the layers - from global frameworks to national targets, and the many policies themselves that can (hopefully) keep this show on the road.

🏛️ A Brief History of Climate Governance: We rewind all the way to the UNFCCC, the Kyoto Protocol, and the Paris Agreement, to understand the context in which CDR policy is emerging. Turns out, carbon removal has technically been part of the discussion for some time - but it took a while to step out of the LULUCF shadows and into the limelight.

🛠️ The Goals of CDR Policy: Whether it’s support for scaling the industry or regulation for doing it right, we explore the many roles that policy can play in ensuring CDR does what it’s supposed to. Who should pay for it? How can we avoid unintended consequences? And is it too late to bribe policymakers with Emily’s banana bread?

🌍 It’s All Connected: We learn that CDR doesn’t happen in a vacuum – and that means CDR policy can’t either. It's entangled with everything from energy to land use to ocean governance. And yes, ocean-based CDR is complicated when 40% of the sea has no nation.

🍖 The Bony Meat Pie Metaphor™: How do NDCs, interim targets and policies work together to meet(/meat?) our climate goals? It’s all very clever, but not especially appetising.

🧪 Avoiding Déjà Vu: We ask what we can learn from previous climate and environmental policies – so we don’t spend the next decade reinventing the wheel, crashing it into a forest, and accidentally calling it carbon neutral.

 

👥 Featuring:

Guest insights from

• Sebastian Manhart (Carbonfuture)
• Eve Tamme (Climate Principles)
• Christoph Beuttler (Carbon Gap)
• Wil Burns (Institute for Responsible Carbon Removal)
• Robert Höglund (Milkywire)
• Bojana Bajzelj (BeZero)
• Christopher Neidl (OpenAir Collective)

• Hosts Emily Swaddle and Tom Previte
• Producer Ben Weaver-Hincks