BONUS EPISODE-Carbon Removal Day Panel: Lucy Hargreaves, Daniel Kelter, Jorden Dye

There’s something in Carbon Removal for everyone — are we building enduring relationships to advance the sector?

A bonus EvC episode - on February 27, 2025, EvC co-host Ed Whittingham hosted a panel discussion at Carbon Removal Canada's Carbon Removal Day in Ottawa. They cover a number of topics including the changing political headwinds in the US, efforts to bolster investment in Canada, and silicon valley's interest in CDR. Plus, they take a few audience questions.

Detailed show notes on episode page.

About Our Guests:

Lucy Hargreaves is the VP of Corporate Affairs & Policy at Patch, a SF-based carbon markets platform that’s accelerating investment into global climate action at scale. Beyond her work at Patch, Lucy is part of the core team driving Build Canada and Canada Spends, volunteer-led initiatives focused on helping Canadian entrepreneurs share their ideas for a bolder, richer, freer country and making government spending more accessible and transparent.  

Daniel Kelter is Carbon Removal Canada’s Director of Government Relations, a strategic policy advisor who excels at connecting political insight with industry challenges. With experience working alongside Members of Parliament and navigating the intricacies of hard-to-decarbonize sectors like fertilizer and steel, Daniel has been instrumental in crafting advocacy strategies that forge strong government-industry partnerships."

Jorden Dye is the director for the Business Renewables Centre-Canada and the Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) Centre, both initiatives of the Pembina Institute focused on accelerating climate action through corporate procurement. His work includes leading a community of over 60 participating organizations across Canada to spur renewable energy development and developing educational resources to introduce carbon dioxide removal to new audiences.

Produced by Amit Tandon & Bespoke Podcasts

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Ed Whittingham: Hi, I'm Ed Whittingham, and you're listening to Energy vs. Climate, the show where my co host David Keith, Sara Hastings Simon, and I debate today's climate and energy challenges. On February 27th, I moderated a panel at Carbon Removal Canada's Carbon Removal Day in Ottawa, about, you guessed it, carbon dioxide removal.

As EVC listeners may have guessed by now, Advancing carbon removal technology and policy has increasingly become a focus of mine in my day job. Three panelists join me for the conversation. Lucy Hargreaves of Patch, Daniel Kelter of Carbon Removal Canada, and Jorden Dye of the Pembina Institute. We had a rich conversation, so I'm pleased to share with you the audio from that day.

I hope you enjoy it. If some of you were here last year, you'll remember that I opened the panel with a joke. And it was a joke that combined carbon removal and sex. That's hard to top. Um, but I thought in trying to set a new tradition, I'll try another one. This one combines carbon removal and politics.

So, here goes. Yesterday, a group of scientists warned that if we don't start deploying carbon removal faster, sea levels will rise. And they'll rise, um, uh, so much that soon even parts of Donald Trump's Marta Lago will be underwater. The bad news, only parts of Marta Lago will be underwater.

You know, you search the internet for climate jokes. They're all bad. They're all bad. So, all right, we'll, we'll try to, we'll try to make it better next year, but that's kind of my segue into talking about the global headwinds that we're facing and all things climate these days, um, and this high period of uncertainty that we're in.

So that's our first theme today. So Daniel, when it has a few moments away from completely upending the global world order, uh, the latest Trump administration has enacted. Fairly substantial changes to its climate and energy policy. You know, it's withdrawn from the, the Paris climate agreement. Uh, it's declared a national energy emergency with particular emphasis on fossil fuel development.

It's revoked some climate environmental regulations, and it's trying to revive the Keystone XL pipeline, but so far without much, uh, success. So the Trump team is certainly keeping itself busy. What do these shifts mean for carbon removal specifically? 

[00:02:32] Daniel Kelter: You know, when it comes to, uh, certain geopolitical actors, I tend to not make any predictions, because I will be wrong nine out of ten times.

But I am very interested in what it means for what kind of emerges as a gap. The U. S. has been throwing money, shoveling it into, uh, CDR in the states, whether it's the DAC hubs, uh procurement prize, uh, innovation funding, some of their research and development. And these are all fantastic things. And it's things that I've talked to Canadian government counterparts about, but I'm interested in what that means, uh, for what Canada can do now.

Truly there's two paths that any government can, uh, follow. We could just kind of let our foot off the gas. Uh, we could say, you know, the U. S. isn't really racing ahead on this anymore, so why do we have to bother? We don't have to keep pace with them. But I'd also say that we're doing any sort of policy just because the U.

S. was doing it. Then we've lost the bigger picture. We've lost the economic picture. There's billions to add to our economy. There are supply chains that are going to be created. And it's not just the companies that are represented in this room. It's mining companies, it's forestry companies. All of those stand to gain when we build this sector out.

So I'm very much in favor of Canada saying, no, we should go faster and we should go more. Uh, we should build on the policies that we've heard about today, whether it's the LCFPP, whether it's ECCC's climate, uh, consultations are happening. We need to go down the path and step into the limelight. We need to boast a little bit and we need to say, okay, we'll be the leader.

Then Naeem earlier today talked about a quarter of all CDR companies are in Canada or, uh, we are third in the world, a quarter of all, uh, the XPRIZE finalists are Canadian companies or located in Canada. That's a great track record, but we can do more. We can be number one, especially if the U. S. isn't going to take that spot.

We should. 

[00:04:32] Ed Whittingham: Yeah. And, and it's not just Canadians tooting our own horn. Jim Mann, I'm not sure if he's come back, but just, uh, at lunch, he and I from Undo from the last panel had a conversation and as a British national, you know, he sounded like he was speaking talking points that the minister this morning might've said about the opportunities here in Canada, but quick hot pursuit, quick follow up on that.

So the U. S. is pulling back DAC hub money, carbon negative shot money. Is there an opportunity and then, you know, on thinking of your policy prescription list for Canada to come forward with some new money and all those companies that were part of the carbon negative shot to say, Hey, you know, that money is there available for you. If you come up here north of the border. 

[00:05:11] Daniel Kelter: Absolutely. Uh, this is the time to pounce. The U. S. is never worried about pulling our companies down south. We absolutely need to do the same thing. We can make the math work just like they can. We need to pull as many companies as we can. Again, we can be first in line.

I think it takes political will. I know that there are economic uncertainties, but again, Robbing from Naeem's script earlier, this is how we insulate ourselves from future trade uncertainties. We build as supply chains that are Canadian. We procure Canadian carbon removal. We invite new companies to use our energy and use our geologic sequestration potential.

And they will come. I have conversations every day where people say, you know, oh, well, Canada's probably next. Something like this means Canada's probably first. 

[00:06:00] Ed Whittingham: Nicely said. And, uh, yeah, just thinking of Canadian supply chain, shout out to the carbon engineering folks in the room, Laurie, Navjot, wherever you are, Elise, carbon engineering, 180 employees, four and a half acres of new land for R& D.

And I think, Laurie, the, the figure is 35 million of Canadian content that's going into Stratos One. So, yeah, we're building a great supply chain. Uh, Lucy, given that we're in this period of high political uncertainty and federal. leaders are, understandably, they're preoccupied with short term threats like tariffs.

Globe and Mail, apparently tariffs are back on March 4th. Climate has really taken a backseat, but given where you used to be with two, formerly with two federal departments, what do all these CDR proponents in the room today need to do to ensure that governments, including our federal government and provincial governments, say like BC.

Ontario, Alberta, Quebec, continue to support carbon removal, and even as we're all facing these political headwinds right now. 

[00:07:01] Lucy Hargreaves: Yeah, I mean, it's a great question, and we're in not just a moment of political uncertainty, but it's just so hard to predict even what the Canadian political environment is going to look like in the next three, four months.

So, whatever I say, like, my comments are, like, with that in mind, that it's 

[00:07:24] Ed Whittingham: You don't want to take a crack at predicting? 

[00:07:27] Lucy Hargreaves: It's, you know, I look at the polls every day and they change. So like if you had asked me two months ago, I would have said a hundred percent. We will have a conservative government by, you know, May 15.

Yesterday I looked and I was like, Oh, I'm actually not really sure. And even some conservatives, as I speak to you now, are willing to give, uh, Let's give Karni a second look because he's coming out pretty strongly in support of like the tough economic and budget choices that need to be made to position ourselves, not only for, you know, being strong and prosperous in the face of tariffs, but to be strong and prosperous in the face of tariffs.

strong and independent and prosperous, regardless of what the U. S. is doing in the future. Like, we should not be so tied as an economy to the U. S. We need to be more resilient and more independent. So that's my little rant on that. Moving on to Uh, what all the, all the folks in the room, uh, can do to engage.

And I just, I got here late today, so I haven't had a chance actually. I'm seeing so many familiar faces in the audience, and many of you I just see on Zoom, and so just wanted to say hi to everyone, and it's just so great to see this turn out in Canada for carbon removal. But yeah, I mean, kind of three things really.

Number one, and this is building off my first comment, is Um, you just need to tie carbon removal to the economy in every single way possible. Not only is it a job creator, not only does it help with robust supply chains, um, but you know, in the context of what is happening more globally with economic change and geopolitical change, I think, you know, the more that, uh, carbon removal companies in Canada can tie what they're doing to Uh, economic, um, imperatives is, is critical.

Given that we don't know, uh, what will happen, uh, in the next couple of months in a general election, I, you know, it's smart to engage all political parties, both the conservatives and the liberals, and I'm sure the NDP as well, are currently writing their platforms for an anticipated general election. So if you are a carbon removal lobby group or a carbon removal company that wants to get your ass.

In, like, literally you should be talking to them today to get your, get your perspective on the table and make sure that they understand, uh, what role you're playing in the part of the country where you're active and um, and how they can support companies like yours as they develop their platforms. I think all platforms of all political parties are going to lean heavily on economic growth and prosperity and resilience in the next election.

So tying what you're doing to the economy is going to be smart in those conversations. And then, Ed, you said something about provinces in your question, and I would say, like, Don't put all of your eggs in the federal basket at this point in time, uh, and certainly if you are a company that's active in a particular province, engaging with your provincial government and representatives is going to be a good idea.

[00:10:31] Ed Whittingham: Lucy, is there a risk in thinking of, let's say we're successful in getting CDR named explicitly? in a platform, and say it's Carbon Tax Carney's platform, uh, sort of CDR sticking its head above the parapet and then getting its head blown off? 

[00:10:45] Lucy Hargreaves: To be frank, I don't think any political party is going to put CDR front and center of their political platform.

It's just, it's not going to be so prominent that you run the risk of Being affected by tall poppy syndrome. It's going to be kind of like a subsection of a subsection of a subsection And so in that way like not to diminish it, but just to be real I think in that way, it's actually probably beneficial for the sector because it's not going to be, you know Front and center of a platform.

[00:11:14] Ed Whittingham: Okay, that makes sense Jorden So the carbon dioxide removal center an initiative at the Pembina Institute it aims to introduce carbon Removal to new audiences and particularly within industry. But, uh, you know, we turned the corner, I don't know what you found, but I turned the corner in 2025 and what I've been trying to do an advanced market commitment initiative here in Canada, like a frontier for Canada, it certainly got tough sledding.

The sledding became tough as we entered 2025, um, and we've seen a lot of like backsliding and backtracking on climate commitments, not just by, say, governments or a government south of the border. We're seeing it from companies as well. What are you hearing about CDR and all the industry engagement that you do through the CDR Center?

[00:11:58] Jorden Dye: It's a great question. I want to Pause for a second and make a worse joke than Ed did, uh, off Daniel's comments. I would, uh, this would probably only make sense to half the people in the room older than me, but I would love a reverse Avro Arrow moment, wouldn't you? Like, that'd be amazing. Uh, no, but, but going to it, Ed, I In the conversations here, I want to distinguish between climate commitment from corporations and CDR.

I think that we have to put it in context, only 0. 6 percent of SPTI registered companies have engaged in carbon purchases. We are at the very earliest part of the adoption curve with companies. We are looking for the leaders. That want to be there because they know and they might not know how to do it, but they know they need to be there on, on broader climate action.

I think we need to be careful because I, I know Ed, you know, we didn't rush out to congratulate companies when their rhetoric changed and they started saying that they were here for climate. We waited until we saw their actions, and I think right now we're in a moment where we are seeing a lot of rhetoric shift, but we're not.

seeing the actions shift yet, and I'm perfectly happy to be proven wrong in June when the earning reports are coming out and the board documents are coming forward. But until then, I do, I don't want to create a self fulfilling narrative and say that companies are pulling back yet because we haven't seen those actions.

So on the CDR front, I am still talking to interested companies all the time. They're in very. select industries, and they're the companies that you would think of because they led on the scope one emission reductions. They led on scope two emission reductions, and now they're leading on CDR. But I actually think that's a good thing for the industry.

If we're thinking back to this morning and talking about trust and transparency, if everybody was rushing into CDR right now, like, I mean, if we had the first 50 percent of companies that were going to buy it, I think that we would be facing too much pressure of, is this ready? Are they just doing this to avoid other emission reductions?

The companies we need to be doing this, and there are a lot more that are engaged now, there is an opportunity, are the ones who have those plans in for scope one, scope two, and are showing meaningful action on it. I think that's one of the ways as an industry we protect against some of the greenwashing claims from the left.

I always talk about it's a weird time in CDR because you almost have a third rail on the right side of politics and on the left side, right? You have this is on the left. This is a greenwashing scam only used by industry so they can keep doing what they want. And we need to be careful of that. And on the right you have, this is another government funded, created climate industry that has no real value and we need to show that value.

So that's what I'm talking to these companies and helping them think through their strategies on this. That's always the two kind of guardrails we're navigating through. 

[00:14:31] Ed Whittingham: Okay, um, maybe I can go right back to you. So we heard from Chris Lindbergh, with, with his colleagues Malcolm and Monica sitting next to him, talk about the RFI and what the government of Canada is trying to do with 10 million set aside for procurement of CDR.

What kind of effect is that having on corporate Canada, or do you anticipate the effect it will have on corporate Canada? And can we expect companies We'll follow suit and be a fast follower of this federal leadership. 

[00:15:01] Jorden Dye: I feel like that's a little bit of a biased second part of the question, Ed, but I'll get to it.

Um, so at the CDR center, we, uh, and if you haven't heard of us yet, I just quick plug, it's because we haven't really fully launched yet. We have our launch event on April 30th of this year, Carbon Catalyst. If you've used the word catalyst today, I expect you there. It's going to be a great event, more focused on those buyers.

And so that gets to the actual question is we launched Canada's first buyer survey on CDR last year. We'll be running the second round this year. And one of the things we found in there is the exact adoption curve we expected. You know, like 4 percent of companies are interested now, another 10 percent kind of interested and 80 percent don't care.

But the thing that all the companies who are either interested now or interested soon said was that a federal purchase or a government purchase would increase the likelihood of them making a purchase. And again, unless you're a company with a really strong brand position and a leadership position in this with a lot of confidence from your board and market power, frankly, it's hard to be a leader on some of these things when they're still unknown.

So when governments can come in and provide that certainty, provide that anchor, and then give an air that it is legitimate, I think that's really important, especially with what we've seen from carbon markets. A lot of companies that went really hard into carbon markets are getting burned on some of the, one of my favorite stats.

You know, 40 percent of California's carbon managed forests have burned. I haven't seen a company take those back. So I think that the government providing that top level legitimacy and anchor does lead to purchases, and we've seen that in our, in our survey, in our conversations. Now, how quick Before the tariff situation, I would have given you a much more excited answer.

Like I think we will start to see momentum this year. I still think we will, and we are talking to companies. I do think the economic conditions dictate how fast that's going to be. But I also keep thinking more and more about this as. I feel like we're almost into the second phase of an energy transition.

We're into that. We have to make it work with the real, like with the unexpected, right? We had a path, we had a plan, we knew how to do this in a steady state environment. And now it's our job to provide solutions to show up and show that it can still be done in these uncertain times. 

[00:17:08] Ed Whittingham: Yeah, that's great.

And with the world spending close to two trillion dollars a year on clean energy now, and China. Becoming the, the breadbasket of the factory for a lot of clean technologies. What happens south of the border isn't totally irrelevant, but it's certainly not going to derail the progress you're making Lucy.

I want to talk a little bit or give you an opportunity to talk about advanced market commitments, um, because you actually laid the groundwork for advanced carbon removal, this AMC initiative that I'm working with, with the. The CRC folks with Dave Hockhalter at the back there with Carlos Pena, who, uh, used to be in Minister Anon's office, treasury board president's office and JP Jepp, who you heard from in the last panel.

We're working to bring it to life, but I remember, you know, you basically sort of gave this concept to me. I've given it to them. What is, what is the theory and rationale for an advanced market commitment for carbon removal? 

[00:18:02] Lucy Hargreaves: Thanks, Ed. I'm nothing if not an ideas person, so I love coming up with ideas and putting them out into the world and seeing them come to something real, so I'm really excited that this is now a real thing with some, uh, funding and some staff working on it.

Uh, I think most people in the room know what an advanced market commitment is. I mean, the concept was basically to help kickstart the market for vaccines in a number of African countries 20 years ago, and really was about providing kind of a guaranteed buyer to encourage the supply side of the market to develop and evolve.

For carbon removal, the idea is to provide a set of guaranteed buyers. for suppliers to deliver carbon removal that meets certain standards and certain specifications and really provide that kind of venture, venture procurement funding, I guess I would characterize it as, to kickstart that market and um, give the incentive to, to actually scale.

We've seen, uh, some successful advanced market commitments already in North America with the Frontier initiative, which was just shy of a billion dollars of committed funds to support carbon removal projects, mostly in the U. S. I think they've also bought from some Canadian suppliers as well. And I think, you know, the 10 million that the government of Canada announced.

in the fall is, I mean, not necessarily an advanced market commitment as such, but it is an important procurement signal to the sector, uh, to show that there is some capital that can be deployed for certain solution types. I would love to see the government of Canada spend more than 10 million on that.

It would be great to see more scale. Um, and I would love to see. I see private sector buyers also come to the table. In the U. S., it's been primarily big tech companies for lots of different reasons, but I think there's opportunity for many, many, many different sectors and verticals to, to actually kind of stand up and put their money where their mouth is and put some real dollars on the table.

It is so critically important for the supply side of the market to have those committed dollars and the multi year, the related multi year offtake. agreements that go along with them. 

[00:20:20] Ed Whittingham: Yes, and just emphasize and underscore that point. So critical to send that demand signal. And yeah, we really want that Canadian leadership.

In addition to the leadership we're seeing from the Metas and the Googles and the, or the Alphabets and Microsoft. Daniel, let's, let's pivot back to what governments can do. And I'm thinking specifically of the Canadian government. So again, Canada's made this, this great procurement commitment. It also has the presidency of the G7 this year and granted it's a year of tumult and headwinds, but we'll still have a G7 in some shape or form.

Is there an opportunity? Again, at the risk of a leading question, is there an opportunity for Canada to combine the two? So, it's procurement commitments and the G7, and essentially put government procurements of CDR on the G7 agenda as a way of trying to get other governments within the G7 to start, and hopefully beyond, to make similar commitments.

[00:21:20] Daniel Kelter: I'd agree. You're pointing out something. Uh, yes, uh, absolutely. When I talked just now about like, Two paths, one where you take your foot off the pedal and one where you say, no, let's do more. This idea is on the note. Let's do more. And if it's so perfectly, maybe it's a self sabotaging to say, but Canadians aren't seen as boastful.

Uh, we don't have that image on the world stage, but like, this is the time. This is a world leading program. TBS has built this from nothing. There aren't models really out there. This is a true, real first procurement program. So let's talk about it on this international stage. Let's say we've done some of the thinking, here's how you can join us.

Let's get some of the most powerful economies in the world thinking about this. And if it creates more demand here, that's great. If it creates more demand globally, that's also great. I mean, this is truly. The time that we can tell the world we're doing cool things that things are locating here and again, it sends those signals that we're serious about this, that it's in our long term plan, that if you locate your next project here, you won't be disappointed because we're putting it into these long term strategies like G7 presidencies.

I, I think there is more to do after that though. I mean, again, you can't really stop there. I think the G7 is great. Um, and I think it's our time to kind of stand in the sunlight a bit. But I mean, the Nordic countries are doing a lot here. Singapore is doing a lot. Japan's doing stuff. So, I think the G7 is a great starting point.

A great time to start getting some of that global cooperation really started in earnest. Uh, and then we just have to kind of figure out what is the art of the possible with others that are interested in this. And the more I travel around for carbon removal conferences, the more I find out that people are interested in just want to be able to start buying some of these credits.

And I think it's leadership that can and can show that can 

[00:23:22] Ed Whittingham: really. Pave the way for that. And that's, I think a very good point. The G7 is just a starting point. It's a kernel. Now the G7, let's be frank, they're rich industrialized countries, so they can certainly afford to do that. I do want to point out Noah Deich, who's sitting in the corner there.

You're going to hear from him this afternoon through his own Stripe climate fellowship. Uh, he is working on bringing other countries, G7 and beyond countries, so that, uh, we could have this, uh, grand global advanced market commitment initiative, which would then send a demand signal in the billions of dollars, we hope, into the global CDR ecosystem.

But Lucy, you want to jump in? 

[00:23:59] Lucy Hargreaves: Yeah. I did want to just jump in and I know it's great to see you here. I love international cooperation and I think we should absolutely be trying to. do things with fellow countries in the G7. To be a little bit, like, to put my hawkish hat on, though, and to think a little bit, um, more critically about, you know, building our own economy here in Canada, in a kind of global situation where we really are competing for businesses and suppliers.

of all kinds to not only set up shop in our country, but to stay here. And in a context where we have other nations like Singapore who are going all out to try and attract, you know, carbon markets players, uh, there, I think we need to be like, not just as good as other countries in terms of our incentives, but we need to be substantially better.

And we need to send a strong signal to project developers that if they come to Canada and they set up shop here, they're going to get the best treatment. Whether that's incredibly favorable tax incentives that are above and beyond. better, hands down, than any other nation is offering. Or it's like a, an extremely lightweight, fast track permitting process for your project, so you don't have to go through all of the lengthy hoops that many projects in our country have to go, has to go through.

Whatever it is, I think we need to be not just As good as, but we need to be extremely like bullish and robust and competitive quite frankly with what we're putting in the window to attract business 

[00:25:35] Ed Whittingham: here and a key plank of Canada's industrial strategy. Jorden, you want to jump in? 

[00:25:39] Jorden Dye: I just wanted to jump in on what Lucy said, because I think you have to think 20 years down the line to this industry.

And pretend you're a buyer for a second. Carbon removed from the atmosphere is no different anywhere else in the world, right? It's not like you need to buy renewable energy in your, for your Canadian operations in Canada. You can remove carbon anywhere. So I really like Lucy's point there about we need to, how can we be the best?

Because while there might be pockets of this everywhere. If Canada can create the most cost effective, most options, verifiable and transparent, we can attract global businesses that have no business in Canada that don't do business here but might have their own sustainability commitments and need to purchase the best credits.

And so I think there's a real global industry opportunity if we lean into this moment for Canada. 

[00:26:23] Ed Whittingham: Yeah, and coming back to my earlier point, you might have a bunch of companies that are looking to do projects in U. S. They're suddenly now looking for a new home for their projects, and we could be rolling out the Welcome Mat.

I want to talk a little bit about tech in particular, and then sort of tackle some of the skepticism that we're seeing. Uh, not just on climate, but on, on carbon removal specifically. And so I, I want to go to the tech sector rep on the panel, Lucy. The tech world and Silicon Valley in particular, they've led the way.

And I mentioned all those big tech companies. You know, Patch is, is one of them and is providing this great essential service to companies interested in buying carbon removal credits. What, what drives that? Tech CDR ecosystem and I was down in San Francisco at Stripe and I just saw like there's this whole hub in San Francisco and just closely interlinked.

[00:27:17] Lucy Hargreaves: I mean, I think there's a few factors number one, I think from The, like, overall, like, brand of tech companies and innovation, I think CDR and the fact that it is, especially on the durable engineered side, the fact that it is so innovative really links well with the brand of many tech companies that they think we can innovate our way to save the planet.

So that's, like, a nice brand alignment thing. On a more, kind of, practical, or from a more practical perspective, The balance sheets of big tech companies look very different than the balance sheets of natural resource companies or banks or, um, more traditional, uh, companies. So, they're, they have more capital to deploy.

And they have fewer emissions. Although their emissions are increasing, obviously, with AI and, uh, larger numbers of data centers related to that. It's just easier for them to deploy capital. Larger amounts of capital for a relatively smaller emissions profile. So I think those are kind of the two main factors and the reason why you've seen a lot of those big tech companies jump into especially the engineered CDR side of things.

[00:28:31] Ed Whittingham: So, Mark Zuckerberg and, of course, Elon Musk and others have been in the news recently, and let's just say the shine has come off tech a little bit, as, you know, with its seemingly close alignment with the Trump administration and the Trump administration's clear hostility to climate. CDR with that tech CDR alignment right now in light of those reputational hits?

[00:28:58] Lucy Hargreaves: Yeah, so, in full disclosure, when Ed presented this question to me by email yesterday, I think you presented it as, you know, is there a risk with tech's diminished reputation? And I pushed back and I said, well, I think the diminished reputation kind of depends on where you sit, and I think it's easy for us sitting here in Ottawa to say, oh, well, tech has a diminished reputation because of, you know, a few individuals doing certain things south of the border.

But I think, you know, from where I sit, and I do live in Ottawa, however, my, I kind of am in the San Francisco tech bubble because that's my day to day working life. There's still, there's such a huge amount of tech. optimism, and I think it would be a mistake to fall into the trap of thinking The tech sector is bad, and we should therefore ignore all of the solutions coming out of the tech sector.

The tech sector is doing some great things, and I think that it's really just a matter of perspective, but there's an incredible ability to leverage technology, especially with like these rapid, rapid advancements in AI, to do good things. So, to come to your question, will this affect CDR? I don't think so.

I mean, I think most people can look at, you know, Elon and Mark and others and kind of put that into the context in which it is, it is and, um, kind of distance What those particular individuals are doing from the overall kind of tech sector and opportunities related to technology more broadly. 

[00:30:36] Ed Whittingham: Got you.

Okay. Yeah, that's fair. And you did give me fair warning. You're going to challenge the premise of the question, but that's what we want to have on this panel. Um, so I can ask a question of Jorden and Daniel at the same time, given that Jorden, you engage heavy industry. Daniel, you actually worked in the steel and the fertilizer industries in the past.

So tech, we talked about like low GHG footprints, small GHG footprints, high profit margins into CDR. It's a different story when you're talking to these heavy industry players that have big GHG footprints, smaller profit margins, and heavy compliance obligations. So what do we need to do? to try to convince those heavy industry players to, you know, adopt CDR or is it a matter of to take and going back to Jim Mann, I think Jim Mann talked about, well, we just need to get it into compliance markets.

Is that the, is that the true key to unlocking heavy industries involvement in CDR? And I don't know which one of you wants to start. All right, over to Jorden. It's definitely the first 

[00:31:38] Jorden Dye: step. First step for both the voluntary market and the compliance market, really, is getting it in there. But you're outside of a few specific industries, so we can think of, uh, the area, like, If you look at every industry association, uh, sustainability plan for the air industry, it is 70 percent carbon removals till about 2035 when they expect, like, e fuels and synthetic fuels to be cost competitive.

Uh, you look at the cement industry, which has some, you know, scope one emission reduction opportunities, but past that, it gets incredibly challenging. So I think there are Each heavy industry is going to be a different case and you really have to look at what are their opportunities for emission reductions and look at that, that carbon cost curve, right?

And that's what's going to drive it. We need them in the compliance markets now, so that those ones that, like I said, airline cement might start using it. But for oil and gas and for others that have other emission, they're going to go for the lowest cost emission reduction option until those are, um, eaten up, essentially.

And then they'll look at CDR. But if we don't have it in the compliance market, if we don't build that trust, and then we don't start lowering that cost, we won't see that crossover happen outside of the few heavy industries. But that's, it really is central to moving both the voluntary market and the compliance market forward.

[00:32:53] Ed Whittingham: Great. Just a quick thing before we go to Daniel. We're going to go to questions from the audience right after Daniel, so if you've got them, get them in mind. And Rachel, I see she's there with a runner with a mic at the back. So, Daniel. 

[00:33:05] Daniel Kelter: I think everyone is a skeptic until you prove them wrong. I think that there's lots of naysayers on any new technology.

I mean, I wasn't probably around for the beginning of the conversation, but for solar panels, it was This is always going to be too expensive. And then it became, well, you can never build the infrastructure out on this. And then it became probably right now is, well, it's never going to provide the baseload power that we need.

Uh, and we're making advances in battery technologies every day. So who knows where that conversation is going to be in a year. There's always going to be skeptics. So I don't necessarily view, like, big industry as skeptics or reluctant in that way. I think sitting around a table from them in industry associations, the thing that I gather is they're busy and they're not carbon removal companies.

They are steel producers. They are fertilizer manufacturers. And as a result, they don't know the things that we do. They don't know. What it takes to pull it out of the atmosphere. They don't know the technologies. They don't know the cost. They don't know the market. So we have to make it as straightforward as possible for them.

We have to make it as easy as possible for them. And hopefully by pulling some of this technology down a cost curve through innovation programs, that we can also make it cheaper for them. I think those types of things, plus compliance markets. are what will get us there at the end of the day. Again, I think these are companies that have shareholders and complex supply chains and customers that are relying on them.

Those are the things that they are thinking about every day. So it's also incumbent upon the people in this room to be able to go out to them and say, I have a solution to your problem and this is how it's going to work. And this is why it's better. I was talking to a company earlier today and their big thing is, They take, uh, some of the biomass kind of, uh, feedstock and they can do it right from the factory within the fence line.

And they can use that to power their DAC facility. That's fantastic. That's a solution that can be kind of packaged and delivered and it's great. And we need more of those types of things. Again, they're not going to understand. They want the credit at the end of the day. They don't really understand the rest of it.

So we have to make it simple, easy, and kind of cost effective.

[00:35:29] Ed Whittingham: Great. Well, I've had my crack at the panel, drilling them with questions. Now you get a crack. 

[00:35:33] Question: Hello. Um, thank you. My name is Daria. I work for a carbon accounting and the carbon removal startup image IQ, and they're now working on automating the process for MRVs. And I have a question for Lucy. What would be the best types of partnership patch would be looking for in developing the company further?

[00:35:53] Lucy Hargreaves: Sorry, I'm not sure I understand the question. Partnerships for patch? 

[00:35:55] Question: Uh, yes, what would be the types of partnership that you would be looking at? So would those be the international partnerships? Would those be the partnerships with local communities, with the project developers, with, yeah. Please elaborate on that a 

[00:36:07] Lucy Hargreaves: great question.

So we partner really closely with project developers who onboard their projects onto our platform if they meet Our integrity standards. So we have over 400 million tons of carbon accessible via our platform because of those partnerships. We also partner closely with companies like isometric and other kind of certifiers, um, in the space to surface kind of their information and data on the platform.

Um, and then kind of more on the policy side, we partner with a lot of non commercial think tanks and, uh, policy organizations like World Economic Forum, Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative, ICBCM, et cetera. So we're kind of plugged in to all of those kinds of partnerships. 

[00:36:52] Ed Whittingham: Great. Okay, uh, we've got a question there and then just for the time, I think those two remaining hands will batch them.

Uh, we'll get two questions and then probably we got to get out of here. 

[00:37:00] Question: Hi, Tyler Chapman, uh, Enercan. Uh, my question is also for Lucy from the second part and possibly for Ed. Uh, Lucy mentioned that, uh, Canada's 10 million commitment for CDR procurement is not an advanced market commitment. Uh, just wondering why you think that is and what changes you would, uh, see required in order to make any future, uh, government commitments, uh, AMCs.

Thanks. 

[00:37:26] Lucy Hargreaves: That is a great question, and my answer is predicated on my understanding of it from September, so it may have changed. But the reason I think it's not, like, a traditional advanced market commitment in the way that I would think of one is it has more of a shape and feel of a like a procurement effort.

So the government of Canada, the way I understand it, has said, like, we are going to spend 10 million procuring carbon, and you'll run a procurement process and a bidding process to identify suppliers that you will procure from. So it will have the shape and feel much more like a procurement process, whereas an advanced market commitment.

basically are like dollars that are set aside to buy the carbon that sort of would meet specific criteria in advance. Maybe I'm not explaining it. I'm happy to talk to you after. Um, but I see it more as like, I see what the government of Canada is doing more as a traditional procurement exercise rather than like a guaranteed purchase.

of carbon from project developers if they meet certain standards. 

[00:38:33] Ed Whittingham: Maybe I'll just weigh in. 

[00:38:34] Lucy Hargreaves: Yeah, feel free to jump in here. 

[00:38:36] Ed Whittingham: Just with the government as compared to a company, there are certain restrictions on any tendering process, including when a government can actually, like, cash can flow for something.

Uh, and a company has fewer restrictions there. But if the government of Canada wanted to be part of an advanced market commitment initiative with that 10 million, I'm sure it would. It could be because we can make that AMC definition a little elastic and that would get the federal government in, which I think would send a very positive signal to industry Canada.

[00:39:07] Lucy Hargreaves: I think it's the elasticity of it rather than the kind of, yeah, more traditional procurement methodology. 

[00:39:14] Ed Whittingham: Fair. Okay. Uh, why don't, cause we've got three minutes left. If we can take your two questions at the same time and then we'll put it to the panel. 

[00:39:22] Question: So I'm going to target my question to what Lucy said, but anybody can respond to it.

Uh, so you said earlier, it's best to tie CDR to the economy in any way possible. And you were talking about job creation. And I was wondering if there's the extent to which. Job creation might be a dead end if a lot of the jobs are coming from building out infrastructure Especially if we can repurpose some of the infrastructure we already had and then kind of in a in a broader Sense is there room for a paradigm shift in how?

Um, we are thinking of these things. Should we be thinking about historical responsibility, or should we keep this kind of techno optimist focus and we're really focused in on market approaches? A colleague of mine just published a paper talking about how applying equity principles leads to higher removal obligations, which is maybe a little bit self evident, but it's backed up with models.

So, yeah, that's my question. Before I hand it off as a shameless plug, if you're interested in any of that research, I'm going to leave a QR code during the break on my computer. 

[00:40:28] Ed Whittingham: Great. Seeker out for the cue card. And yeah, just pass the mic forward to this gentleman. 

[00:40:33] Question: Uh, thanks. Uh, Christian Hawkinson, uh, Unemit, DAC Startup.

And actually makes sense to bash these questions. So you've each touched to this. So in a sense, the question is, to what extent do you agree with, or what are your thoughts on this, this statement, which is Canada has a tremendous opportunity now to institute industrial policy to make. CDR, the next oil and gas, not only the next oil and gas industry, but it's like the oil and gas industry of Alberta combined with the tech industry of BC, the financial kind of insurance and financing industry of Ontario with manufacturing of Quebec, right?

Like, like you could wind that all up in one and you could build essentially an oil and gas industry of the future. a CDR industry that is much more resistant to, for instance, what happened with the U. S. where they subsidized the development of solar panels, now China's making them, right? Like I think with oil and gas and things like that, like it's, you create the ecosystem and it's geologically linked and you take advantage of the geography of Canada.

Like now you have a permanent. Kind of industry. So I guess how would you think of the industrial policy of like 20 years from now? This is like the future of Canada. Like is that true? And how do we sell that to policymakers and others to make it happen? 

[00:41:45] Ed Whittingham: Great. So panel, all you need to do is answer those two questions, offer closing comments, 30 seconds each.

[00:41:50] Daniel Kelter: Uh, going to part of that, I think whether it's about the economic portion or not, it is about the narrative that we're giving this government, international governments, others. It is about the economic impact, the GDP, whatever it is, but it's also about where these things are happening. CDR is a coast to coast to coast industry.

Uh, TerraFixing, as we learned earlier, is doing a pilot in northern Quebec. because it's colder there. What does that mean for remote communities? What does it mean for indigenous communities? What does it mean for fishing communities that are, have seasonal employment? So it is about jobs, but it's also about where some of those jobs are located and what it's doing for communities, what it's cleaning out of, uh, in restoring salmon habitats.

And as a closing statement, uh, I'll plug our own selves of, again. Carbon Removal Canada thinks about this a lot, but we want to hear what you're thinking about, too. We can talk to government all day about what we think is best, but we want to make sure it's working for the industry and that we're moving a needle.

So, always, please come and talk to us because we think this is exciting. Clearly, you think this is exciting. Uh, and it's only kind of, hopefully, up from here. 

[00:43:03] Lucy Hargreaves: I don't really have much to add to the answers that you provided. Um, but maybe just closing statement. Everyone in this room should just be bold.

Like, unabashedly bold with building this sector. We need to move fast. It's going to be hard, but we just need to be un Canadian in our approach to it and shed off any kind of hesitancy that we might have and let's just be bold and go build this thing because it is so important to our economy and it's so important to the climate.

So I would just maybe end with that. 

[00:43:35] Jorden Dye: You're here.

Lucy was great. She hit 35 seconds. I'm watching the clock. Someone tried to hit all three. I'm sorry for the speed that I'm going to talk one. I think the economic opportunities you got to focus on as the second question said, there's the broader industry connection. But one of the things I love hitting is that you've got carbon run and river based systems out in Atlanta, Canada.

You've got heavy geological storage and DAC protocols in Alberta. You have mining across this country that can use enhanced rock weathering. We need to start We're focusing CDR on the opportunities for that province. I think that's the next kind of phase rather than a broad one. Second, I don't see a contradiction between the focus on the technology and a focus on, um, what's it called?

Uh, sorry, historical emissions. I'm trying to talk too fast, forgetting words. Remember how I, I said that we have the two pillars, the two rails, you have to watch the left and the right, historical emissions are my answer to the left, just from a pure math basis, if you accept that all these emissions are out there and the warming is baked in, if we don't take them out, we are already done for two degrees, it would just, unless we shut the economy down tomorrow and no one's doing that.

So I don't see the contradiction. And I think framing, like I try to lean away from that and actually show how it's not a contradiction. You need both. And then on the third one, the economy of tomorrow, essentially, okay. I think it's an amazing opportunity. It's funny. We don't think you can do it in Canada often.

Um, just as a completely outside example, my father does material handling, docks, doors, you ever seen like buildings with like the dock seals and the trucks back up, he builds all of that, sells all that, installs all of that. When he took over his current role, the company was buying everything out of Europe.

Cause it was so cheap. His goal was to make it Canadian. So he found a manufacturer in Quebec, took three years of building with them, giving them 5 percent at first until they could expand and slowly build out to now he's a hundred percent Canadian on all of the material handling stuff he needs. So this tariff situation has been amazing for him.

His competitors are like, Oh, we buy out of the States. It's going up. And he's like, I get it from Quebec. I get my foam from BC. And I think that is what the opportunity here is now to Lucy's point. Be bold about it. Like, take that forward and find your partners. Oh, sorry, I will one more time. Now, my shameless plug once again.

Uh, Carbon Catalyst, April 30th in Calgary from the CDR Centre. Now, I will say our focus is on buyers. So, we will have a panel with advanced buyers who have done this. We will have panels with new buyers who are thinking about this. We have industry and academia, academia? Re representatives? Okay, I'm done now.

But April 30th, Carbon Catalyst. 

[00:46:06] Ed Whittingham: Carbon Catalyst, CDR Center, Patch, Build Canada, which Lucy is heavily involved in, Carbon Removal Canada, all the great work it's doing, scrubbingthesky. com, check it out. Shameless plugs for everyone to end. Thank you to our panelists. Let's give them a big round of applause.

Thanks for listening to Energy vs. Climate. The show is created by David Keith, Sara Hastings Simon and me, Ed Whittingham, and produced by Amit Tandon, with help from Crystal Hickey, Vinuki Arachchi, and Haris Ahmed. Our title and show music is The Windup by Brian Lips. This season of Energy vs. Climate is produced with support from the University of Calgary's Office of the Vice President, Research, and the University's Global Research Initiative.

Further support comes from the Trottier Family Foundation, the North Family Foundation, the Palmer Family Foundation, and you, our generous listeners. Sign up for updates and exclusive webinar access at energyvsclimate. com and review and rate us on your favorite podcast platform. This helps new listeners to find the show.

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