How can we finance permanent removals without slowing down investments that drastically cut emissions?
Why do we need to talk about the financing of removals?
To successfully tackle climate change, reducing emissions as fast and deep as possible remains critical. At the same time, and without undermining efforts to slash emissions, there is a need to support the development of a sustainable carbon dioxide removal (CDR) capacity that is required to balance out limited residual emissions and reach net negativity.
What are we hoping to achieve through this process?
The aim of this co-creation workshop is to detail, to the extent possible, the key elements of a concrete proposal for a regulatory framework to finance CDR in the EU.
We identified four overarching objectives that policy instruments to finance permanent removals should seek to achieve:
Supplementing mitigation without replacing emission reduction efforts
Triggering short-term investments for research, development and testing
Sustaining long-term deployment and securing predictable demand
Ensuring quality of removals in their supply and demand
What could the results look like?
A successful output of this process should provide an outline of the discussed mechanisms and necessary considerations. The following elements of laid out instruments have ideally been discussed in detail and answers to sub-questions have been sketched out.
Timeframe: What is the timeframe to be considered for each phase?
Objective: What is the objective of each phase?
Eligibility: Which CDR methods can apply/be considered for financial support in this phase? How should the money be distributed?
Financing entity and budget: Where should the funding come from? Is there an existing budget that can be used? Should a new one be created?
Governance: Who should run and oversee the financing procedure? Who should be responsible and liable for the removals? Who should be able to use the removals?
Instrument: What type of instrument can be used to deliver financial support?
Feasibility: What are the chances that this will work considering the political/policy landscape?
The shared result will serve as a foundation for further development and policy engagement, supporting the creation of a robust and fair financing instrument for permanent removals.
Agenda Workshop Day 1
09:00: Welcome networking coffee
09:30: Start of the workshop: icebreaker and establishing ground rules and objectives
10:15: Coffee break
10:30: Collaborative Thinking Session: first ideas, draft proposals and timeframe
11:40: Break
12:00: Design Mechanism Sessions: Eligibility and financing entity
13:00: Lunch break
13:45: Design Mechanism Sessions: Governance and budget
14:30: Coffee break
14:55: Design Mechanism Sessions: Instrument and feasibility
15:55: Convergence Session: Bringing all the discussions together
16:20: Check out and debrief
Reading Material
Carbon Market Watch (2023), The bare necessities: Essential principles to design sensible carbon removal policies https://carbonmarketwatch.org/publications/the-bare-necessities-essential-principles-to-design-sensible-carbon-removal-policies/
Carbon Market Watch (2023), Poor framing: The role of negative emissions technologies in existing climate policy frameworks https://carbonmarketwatch.org/publications/poor-framing-the-role-of-negative-emissions-technology-in-climate-policy-frameworks/
Carbon Market Watch et al. (2024), Co-created policy recommendations for EU instruments on permanent removals https://carbonmarketwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Policy-recommendations-for-EU-instruments-on-permanent-removals.pdf
Felix Schenuit, Domenik Treß (2025), Scaling Industrial Carbon Dioxide Removal: Policy Options for a Short-Term Strategy https://www.swp-berlin.org/10.18449/2025C13/
Carbon Gap (2024), EU Pilot Procurement Programme https://carbongap.org/introducing-an-eu-pilot-procurement-programme/
Carbon Gap (2025), Funding CDR research, development & innovation for a net zero competitive EU https://carbongap.org/eu-carbon-removal-funding/
Carbon Gap and the Negative Emissions Platform (2025), Charting the path forward: Exploring compliance policy options for CDR in the EU https://carbongap.org/19-march-charting-the-path-forward-exploring-compliance-policy-options-for-cdr-in-the-eu/
US Senate, S. 1576 https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/1576/text
Schleussner, CF., Ganti, G., Lejeune, Q. et al. Overconfidence in climate overshoot. Nature 634, 366–373 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-08020-9
ESABCC (2025), Scaling up carbon dioxide removals – Recommendations for navigating opportunities and risks in the EU https://climate-advisory-board.europa.eu/reports-and-publications/scaling-up-carbon-dioxide-removals-recommendations-for-navigating-opportunities-and-risks-in-the-eu
