The CDR Policy Scoop

The European Commission just published a draft implementing act on CBAM and it quietly opens the door to international carbon credits counting toward carbon border liabilities. The rules are still being written, but the direction of travel is clear.

Co-hosts Sebastian Manhart and Eve Tamme pulled our favourite CBAM expert, Dan Maleski back in for a rapid-fire debrief the day after publication. They wanted to get the Scoop on what's actually in the act, what's still missing, and what does it mean in practice for companies, governments, and CDR?

The conversation unpacks the 10% cap on Article 6 credits, why domestic credits face no equivalent limit, and why that asymmetry should raise eyebrows. Dan also flags a real risk: with prices in voluntary carbon markets anything but standardised, the room for manipulation is not hypothetical. And with "independent persons" as the main safeguard, the jury is still out on how watertight this will be.

One thread runs through it all: CBAM is pushing trading partners toward compliance regimes that look more like the EU ETS and for CDR project developers who can align with that compliance demand, the long-term signal is significant.
The consultation closes in early June. While still unresolved, this one is worth watching closely.

Show notes:
Eve Tamme: LinkedIn and Website
Sebastian Manhart: LinkedIn and Website
Dan Maleski: LinkedIn
European Commission implementing act on using carbon credits for CBAM liability

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Recorded on May 6th at Zurich's first-ever Climate Week, this is a different kind of episode. Sebastian Manhart and Eve Tamme spent the day inside a series of Swiss government-hosted events on international CDR pilot transfers and brought the microphones with them.

The Switzerland-Norway and Switzerland-Sweden pilots are quietly doing something that almost no one else is: actually testing the full Article 6 machinery for durable CDR transfers, end to end, with real private sector partners at the table. The question is what that process is revealing: about what works, what doesn't, and how far the rest of the world is from being able to follow.

Eve and Sebastian got to sit down with two people instrumental in making these pilots happen: Veronika Elgart, Deputy Head of International Climate Policy at Switzerland's Federal Office for the Environment, and Ane Gjengedal, Senior Adviser at the Norwegian Ministry of Climate and Environment. The surprises are real and so are the unresolved tensions around: use cases, corresponding adjustments, and the gap between having regulation on paper and having markets that function.

The honest answer from everyone in the room: this is harder than it looks, it's taking longer than expected, and starting sooner is the only advice that holds across every jurisdiction.

Show notes:

Eve Tamme: LinkedIn and Website
Sebastian Manhart: LinkedIn and Website
Ane Gjengedal, Norwegian Ministry of Climate and Environment: LinkedIn
Veronika Elgart, Federal Office for the Environment, Switzerland: LinkedIn
Agreement between Norway and Switzerland on International CCS and NET
CDR Policy Scoop — The world's first durable CDR transaction under the Paris Agreement
Swiss legal framework for CCS/CDR

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Who should hold permanence liability, for how long, and how?

In this episode of the CDR Policy Scoop, Eve and Sebastian speak with Natalia Dorfman has spent the last four years building Kita into the carbon market's leading insurance specialist. She make the case that the market is finally ready to move beyond buffer pools, and that the tools to do it already exist.

Natalia draws a sharp distinction between short and long-term liability windows, explains why buffers were a necessary starting point but were never designed for perpetuity, and lays out why standards don't actually want to be holding that risk.

That sets up the main event: the Permanence Trust, a feasibility study led by the American Forest Foundation with Kita as a supporting partner. The idea is straightforward in principle, an endowment-style fund that grows to cover reversals over time. But the questions around standards buy-in, cost structure, and what "replacement" actually means for capital markets are anything but. Natalia takes them head on.

A report is due around June and a pilot to follow. This one is worth watching.

Show notes:
Eve Tamme: LinkedIn and Website
Sebastian Manhart: LinkedIn and Website
Natalia Dorfman: LinkedIn
Kita: Website
American Forest Foundation: Website
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This is a different kind of episode.

Gabrielle Walker. You probably know her as a scientist, author, science communicator, co-founder of CUR8 and Rethinking Removals. She has spent three decades at the intersection of climate science and storytelling. Too much to confine to a 30 minute episode.

Introducing our new series, Digging Deep, we kick off our special long-form conversation where Sebastian Manhart and Eve Tamme have the privilege to go beyond the usual format to go deeper into the person. How Gabrielle thinks, her lived experiences, and how it has shaped her work in carbon removal and beyond.

The conversation moves from her earliest encounters with nature, through years as a science journalist at Nature and the BBC, multiple expeditions to Antarctica, and a career pivot from covering climate change to trying to solve it. Gabrielle reflects on what it means to hold doubt as a strength, how she has changed her mind on some of the biggest questions in CDR, and why she believes curiosity may be the most underrated skill in the field.

The discussion also gets practical: what it actually takes to move corporate buyers toward carbon removal, why the narrative needs to shift, and how Gabrielle thinks about building markets that can unlock real capital for the people building solutions.

Honest, wide-ranging, and at times surprising. This one is worth the extra time.

Show notes:
Eve Tamme: LinkedIn and Website
Sebastian Manhart: LinkedIn and Website
Gabrielle Walker: LinkedIn, CUR8, Rethinking Removals
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CDR Policy Scoop is back with our next SHOWDOWN, this time on one of the hottest fault lines in carbon markets: should voluntary offsetting require corresponding adjustments?

As Article 6 implementation moves forward, the Voluntary Carbon Market (VCM) faces a pivotal question: are corresponding adjustments NECESSARY for integrity, or OVERKILL, creating a constraint that could choke much‑needed finance for mitigation and removals?

There's a clear rule that corresponding adjustments are required for CORSIA compliance and when credits count toward another country’s NDC, but should that same bar apply when companies use credits for offsetting and net-zero claims?

In the “Necessary” Corner: Olga Gassan‑zade, former chair of the Paris Agreement’s Article 6.4 Supervisory Body and leading expert on carbon markets and international climate policy, arguing that corresponding adjustments are needed to avoid double counting and align the VCM with the Paris Agreement.

In the “Overkill” Corner: Johan Börje from Stockholm Exergi, who very successfully convinced buyers that finance stacking without corresponding adjustments is essential right now. He brings the perspective of a pioneering CDR project developer focused on scaling real‑world removals within evolving policy and market frameworks.

Our co-hosts turned moderators, Eve Tamme and Sebastian Manhart, will keep the conversation sharp, grounded, and accessible: cutting through the jargon and focusing on what this really means for buyers, projects, and host countries.

(Disclaimer: Both guests and moderators are speaking in a personal capacity and their views do not represent those of their respective organisations.)
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