In this final episode of our public perceptions mini-series, Tom and Emily ask a deceptively simple question: what would a better conversation about carbon removal actually look like? One that can hold urgency without hype, complexity without alienation, and honesty without infighting.

In this episode:

🧠 Why Stories Matter More Than Stats: Carbon removal isn’t short on data, but data alone doesn’t move people. We explore why stories linger longer than numbers, and how storytelling can humanise CDR without dumbing it down.

🌍 Who Is “The Public”, Really?: We remember that audiences are plural, contextual, and deeply shaped by geography, culture, and lived experience. One message will never fit all.

⚖️ When Internal Debates Spill Outside: Healthy disagreement is essential, but public mud-slinging over durability, methods, and perfection can confuse buyers, journalists, and newcomers. Where’s the line between rigour and self-sabotage?

😅 Humour, Humanity, and Letting the Mask Slip: We hear the case that humour, vulnerability, and emotional honesty are under-used tools in climate communication. From memes to podcasts, cultural work is not a nice-to-have, it’s infrastructure.

🎨 Imagining Futures: We consider how the arts can open up new ways of engaging with carbon removal.

🔀 Simplicity vs Complexity: How do we communicate urgency and necessity while staying honest about uncertainty and evolution? The challenge isn’t choosing one, but knowing which to lead with, and when.

🏢 From Climate Concept to Business Reality: What does this all mean for conversations with businesses? We consider how narratives must shift when speaking to buyers, CFOs, and decision-makers, without losing trust.

👥 Featuring

Guest insights from:

Shilpika Gautam (Opna)

Ross Kenyon (Reversing Climate Change)

Selina Wagner

Leila Toplic (Carbonfuture)

Hosts: Tom Previte and Emily Swaddle

Producer: Ben Weaver-Hincks

In this second instalment of our miniseries on public perceptions of carbon removal, Tom and Emily dig into the roots of scepticism: where the hostility comes from, which fears are justified, and where misinformation takes hold. This episode explores why trust is hard-won - and so critical to get right.

In this episode:

🧠 Fearing the New: From 19th-century electricity panics to GMOs and vaccines, we explore why novel technologies attract suspicion - and why CDR is no exception.

🌿 Nature, Identity, and Emotional Attachments: Public discomfort with “engineered” climate solutions isn’t irrational - it’s rooted in deep cultural and ecological values. We explore how biodiversity, land use, farming livelihoods, and spiritual relationships to place shape perceptions far more than technical risk assessments.

🏭 The Long Fossil Fuel Shadow: Why do so many people see carbon removal as Big Oil’s loophole? The team unpacks the long legacy of CCS, the role of energy majors in early DAC investments, and the powerful idea that “polluters should pay” - even though implementation is still murky.

📉 Moral Hazard, Greenwashing… or Misunderstanding?: Does buying or investing in CDR slow actual emissions cuts? The team pick apart the numbers, the caveats, and the narratives that refuse to die.

🌊 St Ives - When CDR Hits the Shoreline: We learn about a project that spiralled amid distrust and poor communication, and that illustrates why transparency and timing matter more than any technical spec sheet.

💬 The Myths We Tell Ourselves: Gigaton fantasies, $100-per-tonne illusions, and over-confidence that the “best technology” will eventually win. Which internal industry narratives are warping expectations, eroding credibility, and setting up the industry for disappointment?

Learn More

🔗 Explore the St Ives community campaign - Read resources, statements and updates from the local activists who opposed the marine alkalinity trial in Cornwall.

🔬 Dive into the CO₂RE research on the St Ives case - A detailed review of what happened, why public trust broke down, and what the trial reveals about the social dimensions of marine CDR.

👥 Featuring

Guest insights from:

• Ingrid Sundvor (Carbon Balance Initiative)
• Dr. Elspeth Spence (Cardiff University)
• Dr. Rob Bellamy (University of Manchester)
• Sebastian Manhart (Carbonfuture)

Hosts: Tom Previte and Emily Swaddle

Producer: Ben Weaver-Hincks

Tom and Emily kick off a brand-new three-part miniseries on how people understand (and misunderstand) carbon removal - and what that means for the future of the sector. From the words we choose to the baggage they carry, from early “sci-fi” scepticism to today’s governance debates, this episode unpacks why public perceptions aren’t a side issue: they’re central to whether CDR can scale at all.

In this episode:

🧠 Low Awareness, High Stakes: We look at why knowledge of CDR remains tiny - and yet how support rises sharply once people actually learn what it is.

📜 Early CDR Was… Science Fiction: Back in the noughties, carbon removal felt like aviation before the Wright brothers. But have we caught up?

🗣️ The Language Trap: “Ocean acidification”, “nature-based”, “engineered”: the words we choose shape the reactions we get. We hear why analogies can mislead, why metaphors can create false binaries, and why the “natural = good” instinct is more complicated than it looks.

🌏 When Context Changes Everything: From smallholders in Malaysia to farmers in Cornwall, public perceptions aren’t static - they’re contextual.

🏛️ Governance Isn’t Background Noise: We learn that CDR isn’t just hardware. Change the governance model, and you change the public response. People don’t just ask “what is CDR?”; they ask “who’s in charge?”

🔍 Before We Scale, We Need Trust: Early impressions matter. And in a landscape primed for misinformation and polarisation, how we communicate now will shape the governance, justice, and legitimacy of CDR for decades to come.

👥 Featuring

Guest insights from:

Dave Addison

Ingrid Sundvor (Carbon Balance Initiative)

Dr. Elspeth Spence (Cardiff University)

Dr. Rob Bellamy (University of Manchester)

Hosts: Tom Previte and Emily Swaddle

Producer: Ben Weaver-Hincks

In the second of our three-part deep dive, we plunge into the murky, acronym-rich depths of carbon removal policy across the UN, the EU, the US and beyond - and we promise to come up for air, eventually.

In this episode:

🧠 Acronyms and Initialisms Aplenty: Consider yourselves warned. This episode contains more letters than a game of Scrabble. Don't worry, it'll be quacking... sorry, cracking.

🌐 The UN – Going Global: We finally (finally!) get to grips with Article 6 of the Paris Agreement - the big hope for creating a global, compliance-grade carbon market. So, does it deserve its place as the darling of the CDR community?

🧱 The EU – Slow and Steady Wins The Race: We dissect Europe’s tripartite climate framework, learn what the CRCF stands for, and ponder the possibility of removals entering the ETS by 2031 (yes, we said 2031… pace yourselves.)

💵 The US – Land of the Free… Tax Credits: While the EU leans into regulation, the US has chosen financial incentives to scale engineered CDR… for now. (Content advisory: information likely to be outdated within minutes.)

🌏 Zooming Out: Switzerland is quietly blazing a trail. Japan is scaling up a national carbon market. India is laying the foundations. There’s a lot going on out there, if you’re willing to look.

🧩 Policy vs Reality: We explore how the right policy for the right place might be the secret to scaling CDR globally - and why no single blueprint might work for everyone.

👥 Featuring:

Guest insights from

• Sebastian Manhart (Carbonfuture)
• Eve Tamme (Climate Principles)
• Elisabeth Harding (Negative Emissions Platform)
• Varsha Ramesh Walsh (Offstream)
• Shilpika Gautam (Opna)
• Sylvain Delerce (Carbon Gap)

• Hosts Emily Swaddle and Tom Previte
• Producer Ben Weaver-Hincks

Welcome to the first in a Carbon Removal Show three-part policy miniseries! We’re diving into the bureaucratic spaghetti of CDR policy - what it is, why we need it, and why pretending it doesn’t exist is no longer an option. It’ll be fun – we promise.

In this episode:

📜 Policy 101: What do we mean when we talk about carbon removal policy? Tom, Emily and their guests unpack the layers - from global frameworks to national targets, and the many policies themselves that can (hopefully) keep this show on the road.

🏛️ A Brief History of Climate Governance: We rewind all the way to the UNFCCC, the Kyoto Protocol, and the Paris Agreement, to understand the context in which CDR policy is emerging. Turns out, carbon removal has technically been part of the discussion for some time - but it took a while to step out of the LULUCF shadows and into the limelight.

🛠️ The Goals of CDR Policy: Whether it’s support for scaling the industry or regulation for doing it right, we explore the many roles that policy can play in ensuring CDR does what it’s supposed to. Who should pay for it? How can we avoid unintended consequences? And is it too late to bribe policymakers with Emily’s banana bread?

🌍 It’s All Connected: We learn that CDR doesn’t happen in a vacuum – and that means CDR policy can’t either. It's entangled with everything from energy to land use to ocean governance. And yes, ocean-based CDR is complicated when 40% of the sea has no nation.

🍖 The Bony Meat Pie Metaphor™: How do NDCs, interim targets and policies work together to meet(/meat?) our climate goals? It’s all very clever, but not especially appetising.

🧪 Avoiding Déjà Vu: We ask what we can learn from previous climate and environmental policies – so we don’t spend the next decade reinventing the wheel, crashing it into a forest, and accidentally calling it carbon neutral.

👥 Featuring:

Guest insights from

• Sebastian Manhart (Carbonfuture)
• Eve Tamme (Climate Principles)
• Christoph Beuttler (Carbon Gap)
• Wil Burns (Institute for Responsible Carbon Removal)
• Robert Höglund (Milkywire)
• Bojana Bajzelj (BeZero)
• Christopher Neidl (OpenAir Collective)

• Hosts Emily Swaddle and Tom Previte
• Producer Ben Weaver-Hincks

Welcome back to The Carbon Removal Show! We’re kicking off Season 4 with a view from the top - checking in on the state of the carbon removal industry here in the dizzying heights of 2025.

In this episode:

🌍 Where are we now? Durable CDR purchases hit 8 million tonnes in 2024 (a 78% bump from 2023), but 64% of that was Microsoft flexing. Deliveries? Still catching up – and most of it’s biochar.

📉 Caveats, ahoy: Sales are booming, but actual removals are still lagging. The buyer pool is basically a tech giant party.

🚨 Bubble watch: Are we living in a beautifully optimistic carbon bubble? Is it about to pop? Will Tom’s optimism hat survive the bubble bath? We explore industry hype vs. hard truths, including the risks of undelivered credits and startup casualties.

📊 The vibe check: Emily’s on an emotional rollercoaster. Tom is backing the CDR horse. Ben’s beard is greyer. Collectively, we’re cautiously hopeful.

🛠️ What needs to happen?: Scaling isn’t just tech - it’s finance, policy, public understanding, and clear comms. We need to get the message out of the bubble and into the next layer of the onion. (Just… not into Emily’s bubble bath. Please.)

🚗 A history lesson you didn’t know you needed: Did you know the best-selling car in 1897 was electric? We could’ve been 100 years ahead… but markets are messy.

👥 Featuring:

• Guest insights from Robert Höglund and Sebastian Manhart
• Hosts Emily Swaddle and Tom Previte
• Producer Ben Weaver-Hincks

🔗 Links & Resources:

• CDR.fyi – The go-to source for up-to-date data on carbon removal purchases, deliveries, and market trends.
• CDRjobs – A live job board dedicated to carbon removal opportunities.
• "Public perception of carbon dioxide removal technologies in the United States and the United Kingdom" – Emily Cox, Elspeth Spence and Nick Pidgeon, Nature Climate Change, 2020
• This episode of Freakonomics Radio, all about the history of electric vehicles.

🎧 Featured Podcasts & Voices

• Grounded: A Climate Startup Journey – Hosted by Tom Previte - a climate startup podcast for fans of this show.
• CDR Policy Scoop – Hosted by Sebastian Manhart & Eve Tamme - deep dives into CDR policy.
• Milkywire – Robert Höglund's organization supporting impactful climate and CDR initiatives.

We are hosting an event!

Together with Coalition Member Supercritical and the FLN: GGR Future Leaders Network, we bring you…

The Carbon Removal Chat Room: Ask Us Anything

Supercritical HQ, London

6pm Wednesday 19th November

Sign up here: https://luma.com/0ii0lsis

We’ve created this event for newbies to CDR, first-timers and anyone who has carbon removal questions they want answered. We’ll be joined by Expert Guests from across the industry ready to share their knowledge and experience.

Bring your questions and your CDR-curious friends!

We'll bring the experts, the snacks, and the answers!

See you there!