Carbon removal hype, ‘Fit for 55’ climate proposals, and environmental voters

This week, we’re discussing whether or not carbon removal hype distracts from the need to reduce emissions and looking at the EU’s ‘Fit for 55’ climate proposals. Panelist Chris Barnard describes the conservative climate rally put on by the American Conservation Coalition, and panelist Dr. Holly Jean Buck explains that our media ecology often rewards climate fear and doom over climate optimism. Our panelists discuss a recent article by Matthew Yglesias, 'What is the climate left doing?' and Holly Buck explains how her sociological research leads her to agree with Yglesias’s perspective in the article.

Other carbon removal news discussed in this episode: Carbon transformation startup Twelve (formerly Opus 12) raised $57 million in Series A funding. Twelve is pioneering a new market category called carbon transformation with its proprietary catalyst technology that transforms CO2 into critical chemicals, materials and fuels that are conventionally made from fossil fuels.

Carbon Engineering, a firm looking to commercialize nascent "direct air capture" tech, just unveiled a new retail offering for its services in partnership with the firm BeZero Carbon.

A recent cover story in Grist discusses soil and forest carbon and features two of Nori's farmers, Kelly Garrett and Trey Hill. The article describes some of the complications around soil and forestry carbon offsets. If you read it and have any thoughts or questions, Tweet us @nori.

The European Union unveiled ‘Fit for 55’ climate legislation proposals.

Plus, we debate how much power low-propensity environmental voters (LPEV) have in elections.

As always, the episode is concluded with a good news story of the week.

P.S., we are releasing Carbon Removal Newsroom episodes on an every-other-week cadence through the end of August. If there are topics you’d like us to cover, reach out on Twitter or at hello@nori.com.