Join the Institute for Responsible Carbon Removal for the next event in its webinar series, “Scrubbing the Skies: The Role of Carbon Dioxide Removal in Combating Climate Change.” The series focuses on scientific, technological, legal, political, and justice-focused issues associated with carbon dioxide removal, and is hosted by Co-Director Wil Burns.

The carbon removal field has adopted a consensus that we need to build a carbon removal (CDR) sector to draw down CO2 from the atmosphere while also pushing for rapid decarbonization of the economy. Legitimate and complex questions remain about the exact role of CDR in addressing climate change, how much removal we need, and who pays for it. And, critically, how we ensure that carbon removal is a true tool for climate action and not an excuse to keep emitting. One vision for the future in the United States includes a federal mandate in which polluters are required to purchase high-quality carbon removal to cancel out their residual emissions, making the continued use of fossil fuels costlier and incentivizing reductions. Variations on this “carbon takeback obligation” have also been discussed in other countries, including the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. If high-quality standards are maintained, carbon removal wouldn’t be a distraction from reductions — it would catalyze them.

In this webinar, Anu Khan and Sasha Stashwick from Carbon180 will share their thoughts on what carbon removal is for, the role of the federal government in shaping high-quality CDR, and offer a vision for an eventual polluter pays mandate.