Making Hidden Costs Visible in Policymaking for Scaling Carbon Dioxide Removals
Session Purpose:
The UN Environment Programme has now confirmed that warming will cross 1.5°C. This raises the stakes for what carbon dioxide removal is for as the mechanism for bringing temperatures back down, which is precisely why removals need explicit recognition in NDCs and in the COP31 declaration, and why creating a robust decision-support system to aid the effective scale-up of the ecosystem is more critical than ever.
But the evidence on which the case for CDR is made must be grounded in realism. Countries are deciding what to say about removals in their national climate plans right now, currently on an evidence base nobody can robustly inspect. Removals are beginning to enter compliance markets, yet many of the costs and conditions that will determine whether the industry can scale remain invisible to policymakers. Economic cost curves fail to capture critical governance, social and environmental factors: community impacts, access to storage, permitting timelines, and how risks are allocated across a project. As a result, billions in policy and investment decisions are being taken on cost assumptions that are difficult to scrutinise, while the real-world conditions for deployment remain poorly represented.
This matters greatly for CDR advocacy at COP - making the hidden costs and conditions visible to policymakers can go a long way to making the arguments for CDR scale-up defensible.
What happens in the session:
1. What the cost evidence can, and cannot, tell us - 10 min
We present the nine EU cost figures underpinning the current proposal to integrate removals into the EU ETS and their sources, not to debate the “right” number, but to show what this evidence can and cannot support. The material will be published in advance and available in the room as shared context.
2. The round - 10 min
Six actors from across the CDR value chain, 90 seconds each, answer one question: What would actually have to change for you to build, finance, certify, approve or support CDR at the volumes required for atmospheric impact? The focus is on specific conditions, not opinions.
3. Where the answers conflict - 25 min
The requirements of a lender, certifier, policymaker and host community are different - and can pull in different directions. The six actors and the room identify these tensions and explore what would need to be true for all parties to move forward.
4. What we heard and what happens next - 15 min
We read back the emerging conditions for scale and ask who will help provide the data and evidence needed to model these through new, cutting-edge agent-based simulation, and debate them going forward.
Intended outcomes:
A practical list of conditions for scaling CDR through compliance markets and national climate plans, written so delegations and ministries can use it directly, captured live and published within ten days of COP.
An open call for real project and transaction data to build a governed, shared evidence base tracking the conditions for deployment and how actors’ decisions evolve as those conditions change.
Early commitments from contributing organisations, with the first participants named in the room.