Six heady months for carbon removal

It has been an exhilarating six months for the carbon removal field and for our initiative.

We are grateful to be on this journey with a community of people that have hope, good intentions, and the tenacity to realize them.

I’d like to reflect on a few recent highlights for our initiative and share a glimpse of what we have planned for 2023.

The last six months

In July The Climate Map was acquired by RMI (formerly known as the Rocky Mountain Institute), a 600-person nonprofit with global offices and reach.

We are now RMI's Carbon Dioxide Removal Initiative.

Our project has evolved under our new name. We continue our work to discover promising CDR approaches and craft roadmaps for developing them. But we have also begun to step up our engagement with governments, industry, academia, and communities to translate our discovery and roadmapping work into impact on-the-ground.

Since July:

• Rudy Kahsar and Guy Wohl produced this RMI Insight Brief on Direct Air Capture and the Energy Transition and joined our team full-time.
• Silvan Aeschlimann and our collaborators at Heriot-Watt University presented early findings from our R&D Roadmap for Direct Air Capture at the 2nd International Conference on Negative Emissions Technologies.
• Cara Maesano joined the Carbon Curve podcast to present our Geochemical CDR review and roadmap, which have now been viewed >8,000 times.
• We worked closely with Frontier to launch the CDR Knowledge Gap Database. 
• We provided US government agencies with information and guidance, as they design major new CDR funding programs.

For me, it was also a major highlight to meet many long-time collaborators in-person for the first time in Sweden, DC, New York, and California.

Looking ahead

In January we will welcome two new team members, bringing our team to seven full-time staff with expertise across many disciplines and all domains of CDR.

In 2023 we will:

• Continue to publish deep, rigorous analysis, starting with an R&D Roadmap for Direct Air Capture.
• Help maintain the Frontier database, and mobilize action on the most pressing gaps.
• Team up with values-aligned partners, as well as sister programs at RMI, to design and build US Regional DAC Hubs that put innovation and equity first.
• Work with RMI country-level teams to shape public policy, economic development strategies, and standards for states and regions.

This year we will work hard to deepen our relationships with other like-minded partners. If our work resonates with you, we’d love to connect in the new year to explore collaboration.

Happy holidays to you and your loved ones.

Daniel and the RMI CDR Initiative team