Carbon Removal for Sale: What’s Real, What’s Hype, and Who Pays?

With thanks to sponsor Clean Air Task Force and Ohme EV for hosting the event

March 2026

Featuring: Codie Rossi (Clean Air Task Force), Richard Barker (Counteract) and Swarnali Mitra (CUR8)
Venue: Ohme EV offices, London.

Carbon removal has moved rapidly from a niche idea in climate science to a serious policy and investment question. Companies are beginning to buy it at the same time as governments are starting to regulate it, alongside investors asking whether it represents one of the next major climate industries — or the next controversy in the carbon markets.

We brought together three people working at the centre of the emerging ecosystem to unpack the basics: what carbon removal actually is, how the market is evolving, and how — if at all — it might scale to the levels climate models say the world will require.

The conversation ranged from atmospheric chemistry to venture finance, from EU regulation to wastewater treatment plants. What quickly became clear is that carbon removal is not one technology, or even one industry. It is a sprawling set of approaches — scientific, financial and political — attempting to answer a deceptively simple question:

If we stopped emitting tomorrow, who removes the carbon already there?

Why carbon removal exists at all

Richard Barker began by drawing a distinction that often gets lost in climate debates.

Reducing emissions slows the flow of carbon entering the atmosphere. But it does nothing to reduce the stock that has already accumulated.Carbon removal addresses that second problem.

The Earth already removes carbon through oceans, soils and vegetation, but only at its own natural pace. Human emissions, meanwhile, have accelerated dramatically. Even in a world that decarbonises aggressively, some sectors such as aviation, shipping, heavy industry will remain difficult to eliminate entirely.

That leaves two reasons carbon removal is increasingly central to climate strategy: managing those hard-to-abate emissions, and eventually addressing the carbon debt already built up in the atmosphere.

The scale is enormous. Global emissions today sit around 55–60 billion tonnes per year, and many climate scenarios suggest 5–15 billion tonnes of removal annually may ultimately be required to stabilise atmospheric concentrations. But…….

The industry we need barely exists

When the panel turned to current deployment, the numbers were sobering.

Human-driven carbon removal today amounts to roughly two million tonnes per year — a tiny fraction of what climate models assume will eventually be needed.

That gap illustrates both the scale of the challenge and the reason investors have started paying attention. If carbon removal becomes essential to net zero, the sector would need to grow at extraordinary speed over the next two or three decades.

Codie Rossi reflected that even five years ago, when he first started working in the field, the idea was barely recognised in policy circles. Carbon removal was largely absent from practical climate planning, often assumed to be solved through forestry alone.

Since then the concept has moved steadily into the mainstream. Net-zero commitments increasingly acknowledge that emissions reductions alone will not be enough — and that carbon removal is effectively the “net” in net zero.

It’s not just trees — and it’s not just giant fans

Public discussions about carbon removal often focus on two images: planting forests, or building large direct-air-capture machines. Both exist, but the reality is much broader.

Across the sector today are approaches ranging from biochar and enhanced weathering to ocean chemistry, soil carbon systems, mineralisation and engineered air capture. Many of the most interesting innovations sit not alongside existing industries, but within them.

Examples discussed during the panel included adding limestone to wastewater treatment processes, improving treatment efficiency while simultaneously capturing carbon; mineral processes that strengthen cement as they bind CO₂; and techniques that restore alkalinity to rivers and oceans, improving ecosystems while enhancing natural carbon uptake.

Seen this way, carbon removal may not emerge as a single visible industry so much as a layer woven into many others.

The financing problem

If the technological landscape is complex, the economics are even more so.

Traditional carbon credits that avoid emissions — protecting forests or distributing clean cookstoves — can sell for as little as $5–$30 per tonne. Carbon removal technologies, particularly engineered ones, often cost $100–$300 per tonne or more. That price gap creates a financing challenge.

Projects require significant upfront capital to build facilities, yet revenue arrives only once carbon has actually been removed and verified. Developers therefore need investment before there is a functioning market — while investors, understandably, want proof that buyers will exist. Swarnali Mitra described this as a classic catch-22.

One mechanism beginning to unlock projects is the use of long-term purchase agreements — effectively the carbon-removal equivalent of renewable-energy power-purchase agreements — in which companies commit in advance to buying credits once facilities are operational. Large technology companies, particularly Microsoft, have played a leading role in making these early commitments, helping create the first signals of demand.

From “want” markets to “need” markets

At present, most carbon removal purchases take place in the voluntary carbon market. Companies buy credits because they want to meet climate commitments, demonstrate leadership, or experiment with emerging technologies. They do not yet have to.

Richard Barker framed the shift ahead as the transition from a “want market” to a “need market.” In a voluntary system the sustainability team and the marketing department often lead the discussion. In a regulated system the CFO takes over — because compliance becomes mandatory and budgets must follow.

Policy discussions in both the UK and EU are now exploring how carbon removals might eventually integrate into emissions-trading systems or sectoral regulation. The timing remains uncertain, but the direction of travel is increasingly clear.

The credibility challenge

For carbon removal to scale, trust will be essential. The voluntary carbon market has already faced criticism over projects that failed to deliver genuine emissions reductions, and that history inevitably shapes how removal markets are viewed.

Some removal methods — particularly engineered systems like direct air capture — are relatively straightforward to measure, since CO₂ entering and leaving the system can be monitored directly. Others, especially those operating in natural systems, are far more complex.

Measuring carbon changes in soils, rivers or oceans requires detailed monitoring and modelling. New methodologies, improved scientific tools and advances in data analysis are beginning to make that possible, but the sector is still in the early stages of establishing consistent standards. Confidence in the integrity of carbon removal will ultimately determine how quickly the market grows.

Innovation — and unexpected integrations

Despite the complexity, the panel was optimistic about the innovation emerging across the sector. One striking development is the degree to which carbon removal technologies are starting to integrate with existing industrial systems. Wastewater treatment, cement production, mineral processing and agriculture all offer opportunities to incorporate carbon removal while improving core processes or creating additional value. In some cases, the economics begin to work not because companies are paying directly for carbon removal, but because the technology improves efficiency or creates new products.

Rather than standing alone as an expensive climate intervention, removal can therefore piggyback on activities the economy already performs — a dynamic that may prove crucial for scaling.

A patchwork future

Asked whether a single dominant technology might ultimately emerge, the panel was sceptical. Unlike renewable electricity — where wind and solar clearly dominate — carbon removal is likely to evolve as a patchwork of solutions, varying by geography, industry and resource availability. Large industrial facilities may capture carbon through engineered technologies. Agricultural and nature-based approaches may dominate in other regions. Some solutions may sit quietly inside existing infrastructure.

Rather than a few visible mega-projects, the future of carbon removal may be distributed throughout the economy, embedded in industries that already exist.

What happens next

Looking ahead, the panel described the 2020s as a learning decade. Technologies will be tested, projects will succeed and fail, and policy frameworks will gradually take shape. By the early 2030s clearer standards, financing structures and regulatory systems may begin to emerge, enabling the sector to scale more rapidly. By mid-century, carbon removal could become a routine — if often invisible — component of the global economy.

But the path between here and there remains uncertain.

A final challenge to the room

The evening ended with a question to the audience. If carbon removal is going to become essential to stabilising the climate, what role can this ecosystem play now?

One answer was simple: talk about it more. Despite its growing importance, carbon removal remains poorly understood outside specialist circles. Expanding the conversation — in policy, finance and industry — is itself part of building the market.

The other answer was more obvious. If the world is going to remove billions of tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere every year, the technologies, companies and financial systems needed to do that will have to be built — largely from scratch.

We’re grateful to Clean Air Task Force for supporting this discussion - and for backing a series of Earth Set events and podcasts this year that aim to engage seriously with the political, industrial and economic realities of the transition.