BONUS: Canada’s Carbon Edge - How We Can Lead in Carbon Removal with Na'im Merchant & Grégoire Baillargeon

LIVE from the Montreal's Climate Solutions Prize Festival 2025 

Na'im Merchant, Executive Director of Carbon Removal Canada and the host of The Carbon Curve podcast, and Grégoire Baillargeon, President of BMO Quebec and Vice Chair of BMO Capital Markets join Ed Whittingham for a panel discussion exploring how Canada can become a global leader in carbon removal. 

With two podcast hosts and one Bank of Montreal president, Ed, Na'im and Greg pass the host's mic like a baton as they unpack the developer, buyer and policy dimensions of today’s CDR market in Canada and abroad.

About Our Guests:

Na’im Merchant is the Executive Director of Carbon Removal Canada. He is passionate about the potential for carbon removal to meet climate goals while driving economic and social change. He previously founded Carbon Curve, a consulting practice focused on equitably scaling up carbon removal. Na’im is an advisor to Terraset and the Carbon Removal Standards Initiative, and was previously an Elemental Impact Policy Fellow. He brings 10+ years of leadership experience in non-profits that expanded access to health innovations around the world.

Grégoire Baillargeon is President of BMO, Quebec and Vice Chair, BMO Capital Markets, in November 2022. Passionate about transition and fighting climate change, Mr. Baillargeon has also been acting as Vice Chair of the BMO Climate Institute since September 2024. He recently joined the advisory board of Volt-age: Electrifying Society, a research program at Concordia University, and also serves on Carbon Removal Canada’s advisory board. Under his leadership, BMO became the first bank to join the Montréal Climate Partnership, as well as the launch of conVERTgence, two movements aimed at accelerating decarbonization and integrating sustainable business practices in the city.

Produced by Amit Tandon & Bespoke Podcasts

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Ed Whittingham: Hey everyone, Ed here. On June 18th, I spoke on a panel at Montreal's Climate Solutions Prize Festival 2025 with two very special guests, Na'im Merchant, executive Director of Carbon Removal Canada, and the host of the Superb Podcast, the Carbon Curve. And Grégoire Baillargeon, president of BMO Quebec, and Vice Chair of BMO Capital Markets. Our panel was called Canada's Carbon Edge, how We Can Lead in Carbon Removal. With two podcast hosts and one Bank of Montreal President, we decided to pass the host Mike, like a baton from me to Naem to Greg. It made for an unusual panel discussion, but one that the audience seemed to appreciate. I hope you do as well.

It's being released simultaneously across EvC, my other Pod, Scrubbing the Sky and Na'im's Carbon Curve. If you subscribe to all three, you'll get it in triplicate. Enjoy the show.

So, uh, Greg, you've been, uh, through your, your purchases, you've been very public about, uh, on the, the need for carbon removal, uh, and, and the boosting of the carbon removal industry.

Um, how can you put this need for CDR in greater context from, from where you sit? Yeah, 

[00:01:12] Grégoire Baillargeon: I always like to simply start by the, uh, the consciousness level we need on concentration levels. So. Humanity civilization was built on 280 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere. Uh, it's a, it's probably the most stable period of climate and that allowed, uh, the world as we know it, to, uh, to arrive over the past 200 years.

And, you know, during the, uh, industrialization age, uh, we've essentially pumped an additional, call it 50, uh, parts per million in the atmosphere. And that then, that's when I was born, it was 330 parts per million. Today we're at four 30, so I'm an additional a hundred during my lifetime. So that's why I say it's our generation needs to fix this.

We don't have time for the next generation to fix it. The need to, to, for removal is obvious when you look at it on a concentration uh, level. But it's needed also from the simple net zero concept and the net zero concept, which is adopted by all countries in the world, um, except some for now, uh, but is also law in Canada.

Uh, requires not only the decarbonization, which needs to be the priority we need to reduce our emissions, and we should, needs to go from, you know, about 50 gigatons of CO2 equivalent. Now, maybe a little bit more, uh, all the way down to the maximum extent, and that maximum decarbonization probably bring us the maybe 10 gigatons of remaining emissions, maybe eight, maybe six, maybe 12.

It doesn't matter. Whatever is left to get the net zero, you need the negative emissions to compensate for that. That's. Carbon removal. So we need it for the net zero piece and we need it to go to historical emissions and clean up or act of the past many years and, and decades. 

[00:02:50] Ed Whittingham: Yep. And, and just to build on on that, Greg, uh, my, my podcast co-host David Keefe, published an op-ed in the New York Times and it talked about there's only two ways to cool the planet in our lifetimes.

And I think this is useful too, and that if, if we get to net zero, we could just be crystallizing an unacceptable level of warming. Even if we get there by 2050 or 2060 and two and a half degrees of warming might be bad for a lot of places that are already hot and poor today. To cool the planet you have to do one of two things.

Drop CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere, which is the palatable approach, or something like solar geoengineering reflecting sunlight back in, which, uh, is much more controversial. Na. People talk, some people talk about carbon removal as being like a distraction. Yeah. From what we need to do. Yeah. They say, you know, mitigation, let's say that's, you know, 99% of our effort adaptation is 1% of their effort.

And anything talking about carbon removal, it's just a distraction. Tech entrepreneurs love it. They fund it. You should stop doing it and just focus on energy efficiency and renewables and industrial efficiency and all those things. What, in, in your role as the head of carbon removal Canada, what 

[00:04:00] Na'im Merchant: do you 

[00:04:00] Ed Whittingham: say?

[00:04:01] Na'im Merchant: I mean, I, I would trade some of the, maybe some of the hype that's been around carbon removal for investment any day. Because if you think about the last year in terms of, uh, the investment made in, in the clean energy transition of, you know, over 2 trillion US dollars. A fraction of 1% of that went to carbon removal.

So when we are talking about the scales of what we need to do here in terms of billions of tons of CO2 removal to get to net zero, and then many more billions to start cleaning up our act, so we don't just lock in the temperature that we have when we get to net zero. These are massive scales and we are doing and investing very little.

And if we think about carbon removal as maybe 10 or 20% of the. Problem at the end. We are nowhere near putting anything like 10 or 20% of our investment into carbon removal today in, in so far as the overall clean energy transition. So my view is. You know, I think that people might be getting this idea, this like kind of the, the tech interest around carbon removal, uh, and some of the media that you do see around it, to the extent that people are aware of carbon removal at all and, and think it's kind of a distraction.

But when it comes down to the numbers, we're just really not doing a lot of it, and we're not investing enough money in carbon removal. And, and so my view is, is that. Priority number one is reducing emissions. We have to do that rapidly and aggressively across the economy, but we're going to hit a point where we're going to need carbon removal to compensate for the rest of those emissions, and we're not gonna be able to just turn that on in a day.

Right. If it is 10 or 20% of the remaining emissions that we need to counterbalance with carbon removal, well 10 to 20% of a large number is still a very large number. Mm-hmm. Individually, carbon removal is kind of like, think. How much solar we need or how much wind we need, like that's the scales that we're talking about and.

When we, you know, think about the role for carbon removal, it is, we need to start building this today. We need to start using it today. We need to learn how to make the technology better, how to get the cost down, how to build public trust, how to create policies to support the sector. Like we have a lot to do over the next, you know, few decades if we have any chance of getting to net zero with carbon removal that we are just not doing at this point.

And the last thing I'll say about this is, you know, if you do have concerns about. The role that carbon removal plays potentially distracting from the things we need to do to reduce emissions, to reach our climate goals. Like, come talk to me, come work with us, collaborate with us, support us in some way because at Carbon Removal Canada, our goal as a, you know, independent group that's not industry affiliated.

Our goal is how do we use carbon removal to accelerate our climate plans? So it's not. Contributing to business as usual or just, uh, a distraction in any way. How is it additive to our collective goals to address climate change? That's why we exist. So I'd love to work with anyone who actually has. Has some of those concerns.

[00:07:05] Ed Whittingham: Yeah. And I find, uh, often you have to make the point and you think it's an obvious point, but no one is saying, don't do mitigation. Right. It's like, and I still say, listen, if your carbon budget's a hundred bucks, you know, spend 98, 99 bucks on mitigation. Right? But it starts spending that dollar now on something like carbon removal and ramp that up, Greg.

So Na'im just said, we're not doing enough of it. You're a banker, you help industries scale. You do that through your portfolio of companies. Um. So what do we need to do? Like what's not happening that needs to happen in order for more projects to really get going? Well, first we need to get out of 

[00:07:41] Grégoire Baillargeon: our own way, so we'll, we'll have to trust.

There is a moral pitfall here of saying, if we have this, are we gonna do the rest? We will. Like everyone I know that works on carbon removal is really focused on this being in addition and at the end of our decarbonization path, what we need, uh, to do. First, people need to understand what we're talking about here.

This has the potential, in fact. Has the necessity of beginning the largest industry in the world when you think of the quantification of those numbers. So 10 gigatons that remains in emissions to compensate at net zero. McKinsey said that's about $1.2 trillion in revenue a year in carbon markets. That is not the size of the oil industry, but not far.

But that not, that is not addressing yet the historical emissions we're talking about. And when you think about bringing back down emission concentration levels from 500 ppm, let's say all the way down to three 50, which would be a safe level, that's easily 800 to a thousand gigatons. So I was saying net zero is 10 gigatons.

We need a thousand gigatons removed from the atmosphere. So that 1.2 trillion I was talking about times. A hundred. Mm-hmm. It's enormous. There is a, an an A destination that requires this. So we are gonna have these industries, they are defined as different sub-sectors in carbon removal, but they will exist, they will be at scale.

There is no other path in any of the ITCC decarbonization plans and net zero paths. So there is an Porto investment. This is in an industry that will exist and we'll talk about the markets, the buyers, the policies that we need to get there, but just. Figuring that out. People need to accept the fact there's a large industry and Canada has all the attributes to be a world leader 

[00:09:24] Ed Whittingham: in this.

Okay, well, Canada has the attributes. Na'im, what you said, and I hear that said that it could be this very large industry. It could be, you know, something comparable. I was gonna say the largest industry in the world I thought was banking, but, uh, it, it, it has this great potential, but what is the Canadian.

Opportunity. And when we say it could be this great Canadian like opportunity with, with the space or the people we know who to, how to turn wrenches. Like how is that not hype? Because that's the other criticism I hear that we're peak hype cycle on carbon removal now. 

[00:09:54] Na'im Merchant: Hmm. Yeah. Well, I mean, I think. I think it's a fair question.

I mean, I moved back to Canada because I believe that Canada has the opportunity to lead in carbon removal, and we have to define what that leadership role actually means, right? Like it can't just, we can't just be talking indiscriminately about scale. We have to be focused and ambitious. That's what we're trying to work out now.

What is a focused opportunity for Canada to play a major leading role? What's exciting about carbon removal in Canada and why I want folks to think about this as an opportunity in Canada is because. There's this narrative that, well, Canada's a small country, we, you know, our emissions are one or 2% of global emissions, so we're not gonna make that big of a difference with just reducing emissions, which we should absolutely still do.

But with carbon removal, it's an opportunity for Canada to have an outsized impact on the global climate challenge. Right? It's an opportunity to do even more. The sky is literally the limit when it comes to carbon removal. And so when we think about Canada and the. The natural advantages it has. Think, you know, the large landmass, the uh, the long coastlines, um, all of the relevant industries that play into the different sub-sectors of carbon removal, all of those things are working to our advantage.

And so the question is, can we get the political will and can we drive our ambition towards something that really makes sense for Canada to play a leading role, and that at Carbon removal Canada, like our, our, our job right now is. Charting out what that path can look like for Canada to be a global leader in this space, and for us as a country to leave behind a legacy.

On climate change that we can be really proud of. 

[00:11:34] Ed Whittingham: Great, and I think we're gonna get into some more details about what the Canadian government in particular can do. But now it's that time of the show when I pass the hosting baton to my friend and fellow podcast host Na'im of the Carbon Curve. Check it out on Spotify Apple Podcast, wherever you listen and you're gonna take over the hosting chair.

[00:11:57] Na'im Merchant: Yeah, and I guess I'll do that with the 13 minutes we have left. And Ed, you've done an amazing job. Is that time right? Do we 

[00:12:03] Ed Whittingham: really Off at two o'clock? We'll, we'll extend, we'll extend. Yeah. There we go. 

[00:12:07] Na'im Merchant: Ed, you've been asking us all the questions so far. You've been thinking about carbon removal longer than most people I know, and certainly in the Canadian context.

Um. You know, how do you think about scaling carbon removal and Canada's role in all of this? I think, uh, thank you for that question. That's an excellent 

[00:12:26] Ed Whittingham: question. Uh, it's a pretty exciting time for carbon removal in Canada right now, and you can't separate the exciting time we have from what's happening in the United States.

And unfortunately, we're going through a bit of a blowback period for climate. It looked like it was gonna be global. I think we put a stop to that, but certainly in the United States under the new administration. And you contrast that now with what the Canadian government is doing in terms of trying to make carbon removal, trying to make Canada a leader.

Make it a carbon removal hub in Canada. And given this little consultancy that I'm putting together and all the amazing carbon removal companies that I work with and the buyers, it's incredible. I thought it was like myself peak hype cycle in Canada when we said, well, you know what, we're just talking about that.

We've got the trades, we've got the capital, we have gigatons upon gigatons of storage space, but we're gonna be a little player and no one's gonna take notice. That is wrong. Yeah. Like the number of inbounds that, you know, just myself and my colleagues are getting now, uh, about interest in developing in Canada because of those three attributes and all of it now aided by supportive policy and regulatory framework.

It's amazing. Yeah. So I think that's exciting. It's also a bit. Worrisome, and it's a bit worrisome because we're going through what I call the Cambrian explosion of carbon removal country, uh, companies. And that is there's a new carbon removal company, I think every week. And sorry, not to denigrate any of these fine carbon removal companies that we have in the audience today, but we're going through this tremendous explosion.

I think particularly in the US now, with the US stepping back, pulling back some of its supports in its loan program, but also now for all we know, one of its key supports, the 45 Q production tax credit might be pulled off the table. Then we're gonna see a reckoning. I. That reckoning is gonna really take root next year, but that's bad for companies that operate across the border.

But it's great for Canada. If we have the Kearney government do what the Prime Minister himself says he wants Canada to do, is that a step forward and claim that leadership mantle? I think we can reverse the brain drain and get a lot of folks coming up here developing projects here in Canada. And then as Greg you say, we just gotta get out of our own ways.

That's right. 

[00:14:51] Na'im Merchant: That makes sense. And Greg, I gotta say that was a pretty boss move there, just buying us a bit more time without really checking and just on the fly there, but a village of 

[00:14:58] Grégoire Baillargeon: sponsoring the event. 

[00:14:59] Na'im Merchant: Yeah. And, and, and another boss move is BMO's acquisition of radical. And then in a result of that, you guys have gotten really deep in, in connected to the buyers and sellers, uh, of carbon credits.

Tell me about your view of the role of the voluntary carbon market and the compliance market in Canada as it relates to carbon removal. 

[00:15:19] Grégoire Baillargeon: Yeah. So about, uh, about two years ago, BMO closed on the acquisition of radical. So we have dozens of people, uh, working in the carbon markets, day in, day out, of course, nature-based solution, novel solutions.

And uh, and one of the questions I often get is, when we think of carbon removal at scale, is that really gonna be paid by the private sector? Is that a government service? And the answer is, when you think of taxpayers paying for historical emissions, everyone cringes. When you say, well, no private sector is gonna pay, and everyone in the private sector sort of cringes, and the answer is both.

What form is that gonna take? Well, we have voluntary carbon markets and we have compliance markets right now. It's interesting, uh, the world and data says there's about 24% of world emissions under carbon pricing right now. That's pretty encouraging. Uh, and that was very different, uh, five and 10 years ago.

So, so these things, they're shaping up, uh, more and more these markets. Uh, there has been, as it, if we take the voluntary carbon markets, there's been issues both for buyers and for projects that have, uh, removed the credibility of many, many projects over the past few years. Um, but those are normal learning curves of any market.

If you think of securities market, derivatives market, when they were set up, there's all sorts of fraud and issues, unfortunately. Those get fixed and we put processes and measurement systems. So MRV is advancing very quickly in carbon removal in all types of spaces. And, uh, it's gonna be part of those answers.

So we're gonna be able, radical does that, we're gonna be able to deliver very credible, well verified credits to buyers, and we're there to accompany those buyers to make safe purchases. So how does that get done? Well. Buying credits shouldn't be just something done off a desk without a real strategy.

And that strategy needs to come with a full decarbonization plan, a real decarbonization targets. And then as you start to use credit, there are new concepts that people are getting familiar with that we are pushing about. Like for like make sure your emissions start to resemble more and more the emissions that you actually push into the atmosphere.

If you cut down trees, it's okay to reforest, but if you. Emissions, uh, from burning fuel into the atmosphere, planting a tree doesn't quite have the exact same effect, day one. So you need to transition over time toward that net zero goal in a way that transitions your emission, reduc emission removals, uh, towards something that resembles your remaining emissions.

So there's a lot of these trends and we're there to accompany our clients down, uh, down that path and over time. These voluntary markets, when we have enough CDR in the supply system, they may merge, uh, over time with compliance systems. And uh, and then that's how you price the externality into the entire capitalism system we work with.

[00:17:53] Na'im Merchant: Yeah, yeah. And it's a really interesting way to think about how it fits and in the whole picture and, and actually kind of, you know. Connected to that Ed, I wanted to talk about an initiative that you've been leading and that we at Carbon Removal Canada have been, you know, happy to support, which is aiming to b bring, you know, big corporates along and commit to buying permanent carbon removal with, with the context that Guiar just gave us in mind.

Can you share more about that? Can you tell us about this commitment, uh, mechanism? 

[00:18:20] Ed Whittingham: Sure. Sure, I'd love to talk about it. It's called Advanced carbon Removal and its goal, what we wake up and think about in the morning is how do we inject a hundred million dollars in new capital into the Canadian CDR ecosystem?

Maybe some in the audience here are familiar with an initiative. Buyer's initiative called Frontier. We're trying to build something very similar here in Canada, or maybe you're familiar with what organizations like Gavi and countries like Canada, other G seven countries, France and the United States did to really help the deployment of pneumococcal vaccines, uh, in Sub-Saharan Africa in the early two thousands.

What they did is they brought together buyers willing to say, Hey, if you develop this and let's take the the Pneumococcal vaccine as an example, we're gonna guarantee you offtake. We're, we're gonna sort of set aside money so that uh, if you bring it to market, we'll buy it. And in the vaccine world, it ended up being very successful.

And, uh, hundreds of thousands of lives were saved as a result, and especially amongst children who are most vulnerable, susceptible to pneumococcal disease. We're trying to do the same with carbon removal. You know, Mitch Selby from, uh, Shopify is over there. They're part of this group called Frontier, which started with, uh, $2 billion of commitments that, uh, some of the carbon removal co uh, companies, uh, project developers in this room have benefited from.

And we're trying to right size it for a Canadian market. So not 2 billion, a hundred million, but working with, well, Greg's bank. Working with other of the big five banks, talking to Shopify, uh, talking to airlines, uh, to pull together a commitment, a starting point. It won't be the full a hundred million, but a commitment to say, we're gonna do this and we're gonna do it together.

And the really important linchpin that we have in place that didn't exist or doesn't exist in the US is that we've got the Canadian government, which itself has committed to government procurement of CDR as kinda like the bedrock. So. Governments moving together with companies. What you're talking about, Greg moving, joined at the hip and that initiative, we're in discussions with, uh, uh, all those entities and what we hope to do, Na'im, is launch at the energy and environment ministerial, the G seven ministerial, that's gonna be happening once again, 30 kilometers from where I live in, in, uh, Alberta.

I've just come from Canmore, by the way, where the fighter jets are flying store tees every six minutes above Canmore is very exciting, very exciting. Breathing the same. Rarefied air is a great orange one, so to speak. Uh, but we're gonna launch that in October, uh, with, at the same time is what we hope to launch a, a multinational government advanced market commitment initiative as well.

[00:21:09] Na'im Merchant: Okay. So there's a lot of interest, not just among corporates, but around governments to. You know, they understand the need here. And now it's figuring out how do we operate this in a coordinated fashion, whether it's between corporates or major governments to support the carbon removal sector, provide that revenue certainty that's needed in order to grow this sector.

The way that, you know, solar sector probably grew from, from similar types of initiatives or the costs we're able to bring, come down significantly with, with vaccines, for 

[00:21:37] Ed Whittingham: example. Bingo spoken as almost as if you're hosting that very initiative inside Carbon Removal Canada. 

[00:21:44] Na'im Merchant: You know, we're happy to, and we're proud of the work that's been done so far, but it's, it's helpful to understand how all these things come together and all of this is happening in the context of which I, I think you would agree, are some headwinds around climate right now.

And so I'd, I'd love to know, like what are the implications, you know, in the, in the markets right now that you're seeing and what are some innovations and developments that you're excited about? This backdrop. 

[00:22:07] Grégoire Baillargeon: So I'll answer this very quickly and still the podcast host baton from you. And, and then, uh, ask your question as well a name.

But the short answer is there are ways to be a buyer in the carbon markets today acting safely with the right strategy. And that's where advisors like be more radical. That's what we do. How do we do this? Well, first there's baskets of credits that we create to protect our clients. I was talking about the concept of evolving toward a certain profile of emissions, negative emissions that reflect your emissions profile.

That's essentially the Oxford principles, which we work with at BMO, so we can advise you down that path. And there are ways, despite the political environment to be able to play. As a buyer catalyzing the sector, but to catalyze the sector. So Na'im, let me ask you, private capital needs to be deployed for these, uh, these companies, uh, to, to find their way, but there's policy risk.

Yeah. And that policy risk brings uncertainty. So what, what would you like to do from carbon removal Canada standpoint? Yeah. In terms of policies in Canada to accelerate the sector. 

[00:23:16] Na'im Merchant: I mean we, at Carbon Removal Canada, we see, you know, policy as the most important lever right now to help scale the carbon removal and sector in Canada.

That policy certainty is absolutely critical and we've been work, we were working with the liberal campaign. Prior to the election to include carbon removal, which we were able to do amongst other partners that were kind of talking to the government about this, about the importance of carbon removal, uh, and making Canada a global leader.

And we're really excited that it made into that platform and we hope that we can help the government actually execute on that policy agenda. But as a few that I'll really highlight that I think are really critically important, uh, in terms of policies. One is. Carbon removal targets. So right now, when you think about the targets that we need to achieve, uh, to get to net zero as a country, we don't have anything specific around carbon removal.

We don't talk about the role of carbon removal in getting to net zero, let alone have any kind of quantified, quantified targets. Now it's, you know, targets can have, you know. Benefits and they can be accurate or inaccurate. But the point is, is that it provides some degree of, uh, buy-in. It shows some buy-in from the government and it provides that, that certainty that this is important to the Canadian government, uh, as part of our agenda and can be a north star for developing coherent policies.

The second thing that we're trying to do is expand tax credits that already exist in Canada to support more carbon removal methods and extend those tax credits out. And that's also in the liberal platform. I know that's what was, what's exciting about that, uh, is, is that it helps get the economics of carbon removal to a place where projects can get built.

And when we build projects and we continue to do it over and over and over again. Those iterations help us drive down the cost of new technologies. That's how every technology's come down the cost curve. And so those tax credits to help get projects deployed are gonna be really critical to making that happen and getting carbon removal to the price that we need it to to be at.

And then finally, I'll leave the most important for last, but revenue certainty. Revenue certainty is really critical to companies in the carbon removal space. And, uh, and so we are looking to embed carbon removal in our compliance markets in Canada. Uh, we were able to advocate for the government of Canada themselves to buy carbon removal credits from Canadian suppliers to help reduce the emissions intensity, uh, of the government's operations.

And the RFP around that will be, will be happening in the next several months. So that's been really exciting. But we're thinking a lot about how do we create revenue certainty for the carbon removal sector so that they can get bankable investment and grow their companies. 

[00:25:37] Grégoire Baillargeon: Well, those would be great. Ed, I'm sure you watch the election platform of the Ney government in detail.

What have you observed in there that you're expecting gets delivered and what's missing? And from a policy perspective, 

[00:25:48] Ed Whittingham: first, there's a lot of good things, and it was a very pleasant surprise when. Climate wasn't a big factor in that platform. It wasn't a factor at all in in the conservative party platform, and climate didn't play as strong a role as it's played in previous elections.

But we had lots of good things in there for carbon removal, which is a pleasant surprise. But full credit to Na'im and his team for being able to work closely with the Kearney team to get those in. It just, uh, such a credit to carbon removal Canada, and it's made such a difference compared to, and I see Laurie Gare in the audience from, uh, carbon engineering.

Carbon engineering used to be sort of the group, and it's got this tremendous success story with the Stratos plants and the technology. It's being used down there, uh, for pure saline sequestration, uh, of, you know, going up to 500 kilotons. It used to be the only voice really for carbon removal in Canada when we started working and now we've got a multitude of voices.

That's a roundabout way, Greg, of saying good things. However, what we would like to see is, is what now you mentioned a clear link to, uh, carbon removal and into compliance markets. So the clean fuel regulation is probably the clearest way and back when I was working with carbon engineering, we had direct air capture.

Into the CFS when it was a CFS and then the Feds pulled it out, they can easily put it back in under the CFR, and that would create a great link. I'd also like to see greater links to, uh, the Canada Growth Fund and, uh, the uh, Canada Infrastructure program as well. I think I'd like to see recapitalization of the energy innovation program to the tune of a hundred million, and I'd like to see low Carbon Fuel procurement program, which is the fund that the government is using to go and, and procure, uh, carbon removal credits.

I'd like to see that 10 xd, yeah, it's 10 million right now. It should be capitalized with a hundred million and that would really help to like inject, uh, even more capital into the carbon removal ecosystem in Canada. Lastly. This is a big wishlist, but we're greedy 'cause we got momentum and we want to be the world leading jurisdiction.

We should seriously consider a production tax credit as well. Yeah. So the US could very well pull back its production tax credit. I really hope not. But regardless of that, Canada could step forward and that's a world leading instrument to really drive carbon removal projects on the ground. 

[00:28:20] Grégoire Baillargeon: That is a great list.

Na'im, I'll let you react to it. Is that. Uh, the right thing, not only to address the environmental necessity, but also to catalyze Canada as a differentiated country in terms of industrial policy. 

[00:28:34] Na'im Merchant: Yeah, I mean, that's, that's the right list and uh, you know, I think we, we all have a lot of work to do within the carbon removal space to advocate for, for all of those policies because we have a window of opportunity.

We have a window of opportunity right now. We, we had an opportunity to host, uh, carbon Removal Day a few months ago. We get, you know, 200 actors across, uh, the ecosystem, government, industry, corporates, investors, um, nonprofit civil society to talk about the role of carbon removal in Canada going forward.

And the overall message was we have this window. Let's not waste it. We have an opportunity to leapfrog and be a global leader in carbon removal. And, and that's important to think about because that economic imperative is absolutely critical in the context that we're in right now, right? Like we have trade conflicts happening.

Uh, there's a lot of uncertainty around our economy. And overcoming some of these challenges is not just gonna be about, uh, improving trade relations with existing industries. It's about Canada leading in new industries. That's part of how we address some of the economic challenges that we're facing today.

And what's exciting about carbon removal is in a way that's maybe not true for other clean technologies, leadership in carbon removal right now is still up for grabs. I don't think any one country just has a lock on developing and building out technologies for carbon removal right now. So this is an area where we can realistically lead.

And so the differentiator for Canada, based on those policies that you talked about, Ed, and there's a few more that we, we can, we can probably drum up as well. I. Is, is that we see Canada as being a hub for credibility in the carbon removal market globally. Right? We are investing incredible science. We are building commercially viable companies.

We are, uh, establishing high integrity standards for development of carbon removal. We are seen as a place for high quality carbon removal around the world that is actually accelerating. Um. Our climate goals and our progress towards those climate goals and all of that is really critical because I think when you, when we think about the biggest barrier to scaling carbon removal, I think it's trust.

Like, I think it's trust that we can do this well long term. That's what I think it's gonna be, and I think Canada can play a really important role in establishing that trust and, and, and building out this sector. With scale and doing it responsibly. Uh, I think Canada is well positioned to do that and it can be an amazing economic driver.

As a result. We've done some analysis around this in terms of the, the job creation and GDP growth that can come from a fully scaled carbon removal sector there something like 140 billion added toward GDP and 89,000 jobs if you dip, built an at scale carbon removal sector in Canada. So this can be something that we are again, really proud of and it can be an important legacy for our country if we decide.

To make the decision and, and, and invest in this space. 

[00:31:17] Grégoire Baillargeon: That's, uh, that's an exciting thesis. Um, Ed, I'll, I'll let you react. I'm, I'm getting a kick out of, uh, being a podcast host for a second, but I'll pass you the baton to react to this. Maybe talk about the fall agenda as, uh, as we're entering that phase, uh, in the next ministerial cycle.

And, uh, and, and for you to close on our panel today. Sounds good. 

[00:31:37] Ed Whittingham: But I do wanna say Na'im, isn't he a great podcast host? He's doing great. I BMO too. Hello folks. Caroline like get him a podcast. The comms team needs to get on that. Yeah, it's in the works. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It can't just be, John Stackhouse has a good podcast.

You, it's in the works. Yeah. Uh, and we see we're blanking his flashing overtime here. I kind of wish meant overtime last night. I know that didn't happen. Uh, listen, it's, it, it's, it's a great time. There's lots of momentum. We're gonna hit some challenges. I talked about this buyer's group that we're pulling together with the government of Canada and with leading companies, uh, including BMO being a prominent part of that discussion.

I. And I alluded to it, we're doing something similar at the multinational level with this anchor of its own commitments and combining that with its G seven presidency to convince other G seven countries, or I would say in this case, G six countries, I. To follow suit and themselves, commit to government procurement of carbon removal.

So we've got the two initiatives, and if we play our cards right, and the government of Canada gets lots of support from folks in this room, some of you already have saying, let's do this, let's make this a priority. We get that on that fall. Energy and environment, ministerial on the agenda. Then we get a commitment.

And the good news is the government of Canada, its great. Uh, foreign affairs officials are already working diplomatic channels. Hard to try to pull this off. It won't be G seven, it won't be a G seven initiative. It's gonna be at best a G six initiative. But man, even if we had two to three countries willing to take step out and take leadership and say we're doing this.

Then you pull along a few more from cop, and next thing you know, we've got countries working together to drive government procurement at the same time as companies are working together to drive corporate procurement of carbon removal. And if we can do that, hey, we're gonna get a lot more carbon removal projects done.

That's terrific. Alright, over time, please wrap up. I'm gonna wrap up on behalf of the panel. Thank you, Greg. Thank you, Na'im.

Thanks for listening to Energy versus Climate. The show is created by David Keith, Sara Hasting Simon and me, Ed Whittingham and produced by Amit Tandon. Our title in Show Music is The Windup by Brian Lips.

This season of Energy vs Climate is produced with support from the Trottier Family Foundation, the North Family Foundation, the Palmer Family Foundation, and 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. We'll be back on July 3rd with well-known atmospheric scientists, Dr. Catherine Hayhoe, chief Scientist for the Nature Conservancy, and a distinguished professor endowed chair of Texas Tech University. See you then.