In this episode of The CDR Policy Scoop, Sebastian Manhart and Eve Tamme sit down for a second time with Alexia Kelly, Managing Director of the Carbon Policy and Markets Initiative at the High Tide Foundation, to unpack today’s messy carbon market governance landscape and what it really means for carbon removal.

Over the past few years, carbon markets have been flooded with new initiatives, standards, and coalitions, most of them aimed at the supply side. The result: overlapping frameworks, lots of noise, and real confusion for buyers and CDR actors trying to understand what actually matters, while demand stubbornly lags behind.

This episode explores which pieces of the governance architecture are genuinely useful (think ICVCM, VCMI, SBTi and more), where they are falling short, and how this affects the future of carbon removals. We also ask what it would take to move from proliferation to coherence, and why the next few years could be make‑or‑break for building carbon markets that are both high‑integrity and fit to finance CDR at scale.

• Eve Tamme: LinkedIn and Website
• Sebastian Manhart: LinkedIn and Website
• Alexia Kelly: LinkedIn

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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 climate instrument and instead support jobs, exports, and long-term economic development in developing economies. Amir explains why environmental policy alone often fails, and why climate action must be embedded in green industrial policy to deliver real livelihoods and political durability.

The episode dives into the concept of green windows of opportunity, what Global South countries can learn from past green industrialisation efforts, and how CDR differs from earlier sectors like renewables or green hydrogen. The discussion also tackles key risks, including extractive development models, over-reliance on imported technology, and dependence on a narrow set of buyers in the Global North.

Together, the hosts unpack what it would actually take for CDR to support local value creation—from capability building and regulation to demand creation and export strategy—and why getting this right matters not just for climate outcomes, but for development, equity, and long-term political support for climate action.

Links:

• Eve Tamme: LinkedIn and Website
• Sebastian Manhart: LinkedIn and Website
• Amir Lebdioui: LinkedIn
• Oxford Tide Center: Website
• Oxford Tide Center Working Paper: Overlooked Industrialisation Opportunity: How the Global South can Leverage CDR
• [Re]Moving on Up—Can developing countries be a powerhouse for contributing engineered removals towards net zero goals?

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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 link in national CDR strategies and why getting regulation right is both technically and politically challenging.

The episode also unpacks the main regulatory sticking points around CO₂ transport in Switzerland, what lessons other countries can draw from the Swiss experience, and how infrastructure planning, cross-border cooperation, and long-term climate targets need to align to unlock durable removals at scale.

Links:

• Eve Tamme: LinkedIn and Website
• Sebastian Manhart: LinkedIn and Website
• Sophie Wenger: LinkedIn
• Swiss legal framework for CCS/CDR
• Carbonfuture Switzerland CDR Policy Brief

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.