Today saw the launch of the Carbon Removal Standards Initiative – a brand-new project designed to help bring more regulations to the carbon dioxide removal (CDR) space.
Led by Anu Khan, former science and innovation director at climate NGO Carbon180, the Carbon Removal Standards Initiative (CRSI) is an independent nonprofit organization that aims to help bring more rigorous standards to CDR.
‘The mission of CSRI is to provide technical assistance and capacity building for CDR policy, specifically around quantification standards,’ Khan told the Carbon Herald.
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The initiative emerged from a need to understand how strict standards and regulations can be developed in a budding industry, and is based on three fundamental realizations:
- Carbon removal is a public good. As there is no natural market for CDR, unless someone requires you to purchase carbon removals for the sake of climate impact, there is no other reason to do so. Hence, carbon removal should be seen as a public good, as it reduces the harmful effects of the climate crisis for the benefit of society at large.
- Policy-driven supply and demand. Because carbon removal is a public good, carbon removal supply and demand will be largely policy-driven. Even the most unwavering voluntary carbon market (VCM) optimists recognize the need for policy support and a convergence of voluntary and compliance markets sooner rather than later.
- Carbon removal is embedded in other industries. CDR is not monolithic in that it involves a whole range of different techniques that intersect with or are embedded in other large-scale regulated industries (e.g., waste management, agriculture, heavy industry, etc.). Any large-scale industry has some carbon removal opportunities embedded in or overlapping with it.
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With the above realizations in mind, Khan believes the rules for carbon removal will be written by regulators and policymakers with expertise in different industries, and the implementation of these rules will require technical assistance.
Currently, the main source of that assistance is industry, which will have a major role in the development of CDR standards, alongside NGO’s, academia, and other financially unconflicted parties that will help maximize the public benefit of the emerging sector.
‘Carbon removal is a tool for climate justice. Justice requires accountability, and justice and carbon removal requires the ability to rigorously and transparently count the carbon,’ Khan said.
