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In this episode of The CDR Policy Scoop, Sebastian Manhart sits down with Delia Meth-Cohn, Co-founder of Rethinking Removals, who has been part of the ISO Net Zero Aligned Organization Standard working group from its very first meeting, two years ago. The conversation opens on why Delia got involved, recruited by the British Standards Institute to make sure removals expertise was in the room from the start. She explains what makes ISO structurally different from SBTi: where SBTi is a voluntary f...
In this episode of The CDR Policy Scoop, Sebastian Manhart sits down with Dr. Ruth Dagan, Senior Partner and Head of Environment & Climate Change at Herzog Law, and Co-Chair of the IETA Legal Working Group, to cover two legal challenges that are quietly suppressing corporate demand for carbon credits. The first is litigation risk. Since 2022, climate washing claims have increased by seventy percent globally, with around 160 cases on the books and fifty-four relating specifically to carbon cr...
Guest: Robert Höglund, writer of Marginal Carbon, climate strategist at Milkywire, and co-founder of CDI FYI The Science Based Targets initiative has released its long-awaited Net Zero Standard, and Sebastian Manhart and Eve Tamme wasted no time pulling Robert Höglund, climate strategist at Milkywire, and co-founder of CDR.FYI back onto the show to work through what it actually means for CDR. The three begin with a verdict: mostly neutral. Better than the previous draft, some of the more damagin...
Recorded live at the Negative Emissions Platform (NEP) event in June 2026, this fireside chat brings Sebastian Manhart together with Oliver Geden for a rapid-fire sweep through the state of CDR policy. Oliver Geden is Head of the Research Cluster on Climate and Energy Policy at SWP (the German Institute for International and Security Affairs), Vice Chair of IPCC Working Group Three, and a member of the executive team of the State of CDR Report. He co-authored Chapter Five on policy in the report...
In this episode of The CDR Policy Scoop, Sebastian Manhart and Eve Tamme dig into the highly anticipated third edition of the State of CDR Report. At 300 pages and 75-plus authors, this edition is the most comprehensive mapping of the CDR landscape to date. Sebastian and Eve don't attempt to walk through the headlines they go deeper, pulling out the findings that stood out, challenged assumptions, or raised new questions. The conversation opens on vocabulary: the report's case for retiring "natu...
In this episode of The CDR Policy Scoop, Sebastian Manhart and Eve Tamme welcome back Asger Strange Olesen, Global Head of Climate and Biodiversity at the International Woodland Company and Independent Member of the EU Carbon Removal Expert Group. The conversation opens on where the carbon farming side of the CRCF stands relative to the momentum building around permanent removals. Asger explains why carbon credits are the wrong tool for the majority of European farmland that stays in production,...
Recorded on the ground at the first annual CRCF Days in Brussels, Eve Tamme and Sebastian Manhart spent the day inside Day One on permanent carbon removals and caught up throughout the day to give you a front-row view of how it unfolded. The episode follows the arc of the day to tackle the central question: does the EU Buyers' Club have the momentum, the money, and the buyers to actually deliver? Eve and Sebastian arrive with different expectations and leave with a revealing disagreement. Surpri...
The European Commission just published a draft implementing act on CBAM and it quietly opens the door to international carbon credits counting toward carbon border liabilities. The rules are still being written, but the direction of travel is clear. Co-hosts Sebastian Manhart and Eve Tamme pulled our favourite CBAM expert, Dan Maleski back in for a rapid-fire debrief the day after publication. They wanted to get the Scoop on what's actually in the act, what's still missing, and what does it mean...
Recorded on May 6th at Zurich's first-ever Climate Week, this is a different kind of episode. Sebastian Manhart and Eve Tamme spent the day inside a series of Swiss government-hosted events on international CDR pilot transfers and brought the microphones with them. The Switzerland-Norway and Switzerland-Sweden pilots are quietly doing something that almost no one else is: actually testing the full Article 6 machinery for durable CDR transfers, end to end, with real private sector partners at the...
Who should hold permanence liability, for how long, and how? In this episode of the CDR Policy Scoop, Eve and Sebastian speak with Natalia Dorfman has spent the last four years building Kita into the carbon market's leading insurance specialist. She make the case that the market is finally ready to move beyond buffer pools, and that the tools to do it already exist. Natalia draws a sharp distinction between short and long-term liability windows, explains why buffers were a necessary starting poi...
This is a different kind of episode. Gabrielle Walker. You probably know her as a scientist, author, science communicator, co-founder of CUR8 and Rethinking Removals. She has spent three decades at the intersection of climate science and storytelling. Too much to confine to a 30 minute episode. Introducing our new series, Digging Deep, we kick off our special long-form conversation where Sebastian Manhart and Eve Tamme have the privilege to go beyond the usual format to go deeper into the person...
CDR Policy Scoop is back with our next SHOWDOWN, this time on one of the hottest fault lines in carbon markets: should voluntary offsetting require corresponding adjustments? As Article 6 implementation moves forward, the Voluntary Carbon Market (VCM) faces a pivotal question: are corresponding adjustments NECESSARY for integrity, or OVERKILL, creating a constraint that could choke much‑needed finance for mitigation and removals? There's a clear rule that corresponding adjustments are required f...
Noah Deich is back. When he last joined the show in February 2025, the US DOE had just gutted its CDR programmes. This time, he returns to debrief on a very different project: his attempt to build a government-led advanced market commitment for carbon removal, modelled on the GAVI Vaccine Alliance in global health. He spoke to around two dozen governments. The outcome wasn't what he hoped for, but his diagnosis of why is sharper than you might expect, and it points to a fundamental gap that no c...
In this episode, co-hosts Sebastian Manhart and Eve Tamme are joined by Dr Andrew Lenton, Director of CSIRO's CarbonLock Future Science Platform, to discuss Australia's newly published CDR roadmap and its first novel CDR workforce report. Andrew walks through what it took to build a credible national roadmap and why the coalition of partners, including Google as the sole private sector contributor, may matter as much as the findings themselves. He covers the technologies that surprised him most ...
In this episode of The CDR Policy Scoop, co-hosts Sebastian Manhart and Eve Tamme sit down for their unscripted quarterly catch-up to discuss what's top of mind in CDR policy. They open on the EU CBAM and the question of whether Article 6 credits could satisfy CBAM liabilities. They cut through social media hype to examine what has actually been decided, and whether this logic undermines the mechanism's original purpose of incentivising domestic carbon pricing. The conversation turns to the EU's...
In this episode of The CDR Policy Scoop, Sebastian Manhart and Eve Tamme are joined by Hannah Bebbington Valori, Head of Deployment at Frontier, the advanced market commitment backed by Stripe, Alphabet, Shopify, McKinsey, and Meta that has become one of the largest and most experienced buyers of carbon removal in the world. The conversation opens with Frontier's newly redesigned innovation program, which this year expands beyond pre-purchases to include R&D grants and more flexible check si...
In this episode of The CDR Policy Scoop, Sebastian Manhart and Eve Tamme are joined by Harry Smith, Principal Consultant at Aether and former Leverhulme Doctoral Scholar at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of East Anglia, where he completed his PhD on the policy and governance of carbon dioxide removal. The conversation explores what national long-term low-emission development strategies actually say about carbon removal, and how much of it should concern us. Harry draw...
In this episode of The CDR Policy Scoop, Sebastian Manhart and Eve Tamme are joined by Maureen Walsh, Executive Director of the US Biochar Coalition (USBC), to discuss how biochar has quietly built one of the most resilient policy positions of any CDR technology in the United States. Recorded amid tariff pressures, farm bill limbo, and a Washington reshaped by the second Trump administration, the conversation gets straight to the question: is this political moment different? Maureen's answer is ...
In this episode of The CDR Policy Scoop, Eve Tamme is joined by Canadian Senator Colin Deacon from Nova Scotia. Senator Deacon is a former entrepreneur, who has been a driving force behind what may be the most comprehensive government study on marine carbon dioxide removal undertaken by any national legislature to date. The conversation centres on the landmark report published by Canada's Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans in February 2026, which examined marine CDR - particularly...
In this episode of The CDR Policy Scoop , Sebastian Manhart and Eve Tamme are joined by Jennifer Wilcox , Presidential Distinguished Professor at the University of Pennsylvania and former Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management at the U.S. Department of Energy. Recorded amid major policy shifts in Washington, the conversation explores what has changed - and what has not - for carbon management and carbon removal in the United States. Jennifer re...
This episode explores Robert Höglund's conditional net-zero target framework, designed to clarify corporate climate responsibilities by separating emissions companies control from those needing broader systemic shifts. The discussion covers practical challenges like financial feasibility and the risk of creating loopholes versus fostering honesty. It also examines how this new perspective could influence near-term demand for carbon removal and encourage more companies to set achievable net-zero goals.
In this episode of The CDR Policy Scoop , Sebastian Manhart and Eve Tamme are joined by Josh Becker , California State Senator representing Silicon Valley, to discuss the future of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) policy in California. Recorded live on Presidents’ Day, the conversation explores how California quantified its carbon removal needs - 7 million tons by 2030 and 75 million tons by 2045 - and what it will actually take to deliver on those targets. The episode dives into the legislative his...
In this episode of The CDR Policy Scoop , Sebastian Manhart and Eve Tamme are joined by Jannick Buhl , Head of CCUS, CDR and Biomass at the Danish District Heating Association, to unpack what happened in Denmark’s highly anticipated CCS subsidy tender. Recorded in early February, the conversation examines why nine out of ten pre-qualified bidders withdrew from a tender worth nearly €4 billion , leaving just two final applications. Jannick explains why Denmark’s approach - requiring bidders to ta...
Germany is emerging as one of Europe’s most active carbon removal markets - with new public funding, a growing startup ecosystem, and heavy industry exploring large-scale CDR. But can policy, infrastructure, and demand keep pace with ambition? In this special episode, Sebastian Manhart shares insights from a two-day CDR experience tour across Germany, featuring conversations with policymakers, researchers, startups, and industry leaders. The episode explores Germany’s carbon removal potential, t...
How will the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) handle carbon price paid abroad, and what does that mean for carbon removal and international carbon markets? The European Commission is now working on detailed rules for deducting a carbon price paid in third countries, including how carbon credits under compliance schemes and Article 6 of the Paris Agreement might be taken into account. The stakes for CBAM’s global impact just got much higher. This CDR Policy Scoop episode unpacks wha...
Alexia Kelly from the High Tide Foundation joins Sebastian Manhart and Eve Tamme to dissect the current state of carbon market governance. They explore the proliferation of standards, the challenges for carbon removal actors, and the efficacy of various initiatives like ICVCM, VCMI, and SBTi. The discussion critiques the lack of transparency in 'contribution claims' and argues for simpler, more impactful approaches to effectively finance CDR and broader climate action.
In this episode of The CDR Policy Scoop, Sebastian Manhart and Eve Tamme are joined by Amir Lebdioui, Director of the TIDE Centre at the University of Oxford, to explore whether durable carbon dioxide removal can become a credible green industrialisation pathway for the Global South. Recorded on January 19, the conversation builds on a recent working paper authored by Sebastian Manhart and Raphael Cario in collaboration with the TIDE Centre examining how carbon removal could move beyond a niche ...
In this episode of The CDR Policy Scoop, Sebastian Manhart and Eve Tamme are joined by Sophie Wenger, Climate Policy Officer at the Federal Office for the Environment, for a deep dive into Switzerland’s approach to scaling carbon capture and removal. Recorded on January 12, the conversation explores how Switzerland is developing a holistic strategy for CCS and CDR, with a strong focus on CO₂ transport infrastructure as the key enabler for scale. Sophie explains why transport is often the missing...
In this special episode, producer Helen Lundebye interviews co-hosts Eve Tamme and Sebastian Manhart about the journey of The CDR Policy Scoop. They discuss its origins as informal LinkedIn Lives, their deliberate choice of an unscripted, conversational format born from frustration with traditional webinars, and how their complementary expertise shapes the show. The hosts reflect on the show's impact, its targeted policymaker audience, and their vision for future experimentation and continued deep dives into carbon removal policy.
Eve Tamme and Sebastian Manhart forecast pivotal 2026 carbon removal policy developments. They discuss Germany's potential first government procurement of durable credits, the anticipated EU ETS integration of removals, and the rollout of CRCF certification. The hosts also explore the uncertainties around international credits, the role of Article 6 and COPs, and the crucial EU CO2 transport and market package for scaling engineered removals.
