The CDR Policy Scoop

Eve Tamme and Sebastian Manhart
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Get the Scoop on the latest CDR policy developments with Eve Tamme and Sebastian Manhart. Punchy, unfiltered, to the point discussions on all hot developments in the sector.  Listen in to go several levels deeper and beyond the analysis that you won't find anywhere else. Enjoy. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  1. 7H AGO

    Fixing Permanence: Insurance and the Permanence Trust - with Natalia Dorfman

    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 point but were never designed for perpetuity, and lays out why standards don't actually want to be holding that risk. That sets up the main event: the Permanence Trust, a feasibility study led by the American Forest Foundation with Kita as a supporting partner. The idea is straightforward in principle, an endowment-style fund that grows to cover reversals over time. But the questions around standards buy-in, cost structure, and what "replacement" actually means for capital markets are anything but. Natalia takes them head on. A report is due around June and a pilot to follow. This one is worth watching. Show notes: Eve Tamme: LinkedIn and WebsiteSebastian Manhart: LinkedIn and WebsiteNatalia Dorfman: LinkedInKita: WebsiteAmerican Forest Foundation: Website Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    30 min

  2. 4D AGO

    DIGGING DEEP with Gabrielle Walker: A Life in Climate

    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. How Gabrielle thinks, her lived experiences, and how it has shaped her work in carbon removal and beyond. The conversation moves from her earliest encounters with nature, through years as a science journalist at Nature and the BBC, multiple expeditions to Antarctica, and a career pivot from covering climate change to trying to solve it. Gabrielle reflects on what it means to hold doubt as a strength, how she has changed her mind on some of the biggest questions in CDR, and why she believes curiosity may be the most underrated skill in the field. The discussion also gets practical: what it actually takes to move corporate buyers toward carbon removal, why the narrative needs to shift, and how Gabrielle thinks about building markets that can unlock real capital for the people building solutions. Honest, wide-ranging, and at times surprising. This one is worth the extra time. Show notes: Eve Tamme: LinkedIn and WebsiteSebastian Manhart: LinkedIn and WebsiteGabrielle Walker: LinkedIn, CUR8, Rethinking Removals Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    2h 1m

  3. 6D AGO

    SHOWDOWN: Corresponding Adjustments: Necessary or Overkill?

    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 for CORSIA compliance and when credits count toward another country’s NDC, but should that same bar apply when companies use credits for offsetting and net-zero claims? In the “Necessary” Corner: Olga Gassan‑zade, former chair of the Paris Agreement’s Article 6.4 Supervisory Body and leading expert on carbon markets and international climate policy, arguing that corresponding adjustments are needed to avoid double counting and align the VCM with the Paris Agreement. In the “Overkill” Corner: Johan Börje from Stockholm Exergi, who very successfully convinced buyers that finance stacking without corresponding adjustments is essential right now. He brings the perspective of a pioneering CDR project developer focused on scaling real‑world removals within evolving policy and market frameworks. Our co-hosts turned moderators, Eve Tamme and Sebastian Manhart, will keep the conversation sharp, grounded, and accessible: cutting through the jargon and focusing on what this really means for buyers, projects, and host countries. (Disclaimer: Both guests and moderators are speaking in a personal capacity and their views do not represent those of their respective organisations.) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    39 min

  4. APR 15

    A Government AMC for CDR - with Noah Deich

    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 country has yet closed. Noah draws on the history of renewables to explain what CDR policy is still missing, identifies the two interventions he'd prioritise above everything else, and makes the case for why the current political moment, however bleak it looks, may be exactly the right time to be thinking big. The AMC concept isn't dead. But the path there looks different than it did two years ago. Links: Eve Tamme: LinkedIn and WebsiteSebastian Manhart: LinkedIn and WebsiteNoah Deich: LinkedIn and SubstackReport: A Government-Led Advance Market Commitment (AMC) for Carbon RemovalPrevious episode: CDR at DoE is dead — or is it? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    28 min

  5. APR 12

    Australia's CDR Roadmap - with Andrew Lenton

    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 and what Australia's unique geography means for the CDR opportunity. The conversation turns to early policy signals: a new Australia-Canada CDR agreement, fresh federal and state-level funding, and how Australia's co-presidency of COP31 is shaping the agenda. Andrew reflects on what it has taken to build basic CDR literacy across government as a foundation for any of this to stick. The episode closes on workforce, Australia's first novel CDR workforce report just landed, and Andrew outlines the four recommendations at its core. Sebastian brings in data from CDRjobs and European parallels to show why getting this right, and soon, matters. Links: Eve Tamme: LinkedIn and WebsiteSebastian Manhart: LinkedIn and WebsiteDr Andrew Lentoni: LinkedInAustralian CDR RoadmapAustralia CDR Workforce Report Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    30 min

  6. APR 8

    Quarterly catch up: CBAM, ETS, and AI

    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 broader reliance on international credits, including the 5% allowance under the 2040 target. Eve walks through the layered costs that make this look far less cheap than advertised, and the supply and infrastructure constraints that compound the problem. Sebastian flags three parallel EU processes: CBAM revision, international credits consultation, and ETS revisions, and the Negative Emissions Platform's new ETS Needs Removals campaign. The price gap for DAC and BECCS, and how to bridge it through ETS revenues, closes out the policy discussion. Sebastian teases an upcoming paper with Rafael Cario on front-loading ETS revenues for carbon removals. The episode ends with AI as the wildcard: a force driving up CDR demand, and potentially if the energy buildout outlasts the hype, a future catalyst for cheap direct air capture energy. Links: Eve Tamme: LinkedIn and WebsiteSebastian Manhart: LinkedIn and Website Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    27 min

  7. MAR 30

    Frontier: The Private Bet on the Public Good - with Hannah Bebbington Valori

    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 sizes. Hannah explains that roughly 60% of the R&D gaps Frontier identified at launch in 2022 have already been worked on or solved, a sign the field has matured enough to warrant a broader funding approach. Much of the discussion centres on Frontier's theory of change and the concept of the "baton pass": The idea that voluntary corporate buyers exist to pull technology from lab to field and prepare a portfolio of proven solutions for governments to eventually take over. Hannah is direct that carbon removal is ultimately a public good requiring government-scale support, and that the voluntary market alone cannot get to gigatons. Sebastian and Eve push on how Frontier engages on policy across jurisdictions, how its buying criteria feed into legislative processes, and the tension between being "tech agnostic" in policy design and the practical pressure to fund what already works. The episode also revisits Frontier's 2024 fellows program, which placed individuals around the world to build demand for carbon removal through policy. Hannah gives an honest assessment: the Nordic Carbon Removal Alliance was a genuine win, but one year is a short runway for systems change, and policy moves slowly by design. The conversation closes on the question the whole sector is watching, what happens to Frontier after 2030, with Hannah confirming the team is actively working on it. Links: Eve Tamme: LinkedIn and WebsiteSebastian Manhart: LinkedIn and WebsiteHannah Bebbington Valori: LinkedInFrontier: LinkedIn and Website Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    28 min

  8. MAR 19

    Do long-term strategies deliver credible CDR pathways? - with Harry Smith

    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 draws on his doctoral research, which analysed long-term strategies across 71 countries, to explain why these documents are often optional, outdated, and light on detail when it comes to CDR. The episode digs into the residual emissions data at the heart of his research: only 26 of 71 countries quantified residual emissions at the point of net zero, with an average of 21% of peak emissions, more than double the 10% commonly referenced in IPCC scenarios. Australia and Canada sit at 52% and 44% respectively, leaning heavily on CDR and international credits to close the gap. Sebastian, Eve and Harry also examine why the land sector carries far more weight in national strategies than engineered CDR, and why Harry considers it the bigger risk. The discussion closes on what long-term strategies have actually contributed,  a refinement of end-of-century warming projections, and why near-term policy design, not long-term vision documents, is where the real work on CDR now needs to happen. Links: Eve Tamme: LinkedIn and WebsiteSebastian Manhart: LinkedIn and WebsiteHarry Smith: LinkedInUNFCCC Long Term Strategies PortalPromising Words, Evaluating Actions: Assessing Carbon Dioxide Removal in National Net Zero Plans, by Harry B Smith Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    29 min
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About

Get the Scoop on the latest CDR policy developments with Eve Tamme and Sebastian Manhart. Punchy, unfiltered, to the point discussions on all hot developments in the sector.  Listen in to go several levels deeper and beyond the analysis that you won't find anywhere else. Enjoy. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Information

  • Creator
    Eve Tamme and Sebastian Manhart
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    76
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 0ac91ce0-7e6e-11f0-8845-453024790205
  • Show Website
    The CDR Policy Scoop

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