The Carbon Curve

The third episode of The Carbon Curve podcast is with Dai Ellis.Today’s discussion is about sketching out a vision for the carbon removal market. Creating that market is going to be really tricky. Unlike other climate technologies carbon removal, for the most part, doesn’t deliver a product or service besides its climate benefit. But the market for carbon removal can’t exist without large purchasers creating consistent demand.In recent months we’ve seen the private sector take up that mantle by banding together with other companies to create advance market commitments (or AMCs) to buy CDR, establishing much needed demand for this nascent industry.The model is fashioned after AMCs that were used in the global health space to scale up access to vaccines, HIV medicines, and other life saving health products in low income countries.Dai Ellis was instrumental in helping shape some of those markets back when we both worked at the Clinton Foundation (referred to as the Clinton Health Access Initiative or CHAI in this episode) well over 10 years ago. Now he’s thinking about market shaping in the context of new climate technologies. He wrote a series of four articles on his newsletter (subscribe here) sharing his lessons in global health to the early carbon removal market. Despite some key differences that Dai points out, there’s some really valuable lessons that we can apply from global health to scaling up CDR. This episode will shed some light on those lessons.Dai Ellis is an entrepreneur and executive coach to climate tech founders and CEOs. He helps companies through inflection-point moments of rapid growth, typically in the Series A to C phase, and his current clients include a range of leading climate tech companies like Arcadia, Sealed, Running Tide, and David Energy.Climate tech is Dai’s third career chapter after long stints in healthcare and education. Most recently, he co-founded a VC-backed startup in Africa called Nova Pioneer, building the first pan-African network of K-12 schools offering world-class education at affordable tuition levels.Even more relevant to what we’ll be talking about today, Dai previously led the Clinton Health Access Initiative’s (CHAI) work on creating and shaping markets for drugs, vaccines, and other health products in the developing world. During that stretch of his career he also chaired the Global Fund’s Market Dynamics Committee and served as an advisor to the Gates Foundation.In this episode, Na’im and Dai talk about:* What an advance market commitment (AMC) is, and how it was used in creating a market for vaccines and HIV medicines in low income countries* Features and challenges of these global health markets vs. the early CDR market today* Key similarities and differences between AMCs from the global health space and AMCs that have emerged to scale up CDR* Dai’s six building blocks for not just creating, but shaping a healthy, thriving CDR market and the 2 building blocks we need to stand up most urgentlyRead Dai’s excellent full series here:* Frontier and its AMC progenitor* Adventures in market shaping* Frontier as a CDR market steward* Toward a vision for the CDR marketRead my recent report with CarbonPlan on the barriers to scaling the carbon removal industry.You can connect with Dai Ellis on LinkedIn or Twitter or shoot him an email at ellisdai [at] gmail [dot] com.If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to this podcast on your favorite podcast app or subscribe via The Carbon Curve newsletter here. If you’d like to get in touch with Na’im, you can reach out via Twitter and LinkedIn.Na’im Merchant is an advisor and thought partner to start-ups, policy groups, and research organizations on scaling up the climate technologies to meet the monumental challenge removing billions of tons of CO2 from the atmosphere to combat climate change. Every two weeks, Na’im will release a short interview with individuals advancing bold new ideas and taking a collective action approach to scaling up carbon removal. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit carboncurve.substack.com

The second episode of The Carbon Curve Podcast is with Chris Neidl (Twitter, LinkedIn), Co-Founder of the OpenAir Collective. OpenAir is a volunteer-led, global network accelerating carbon removal advancement and evolution through member initiated missions. OpenAir has completely re-imagined climate activism by mobilizing people to not just support, but co-create policies at the local, state, and federal level to scale up carbon removal. The group is grounded in open source principles like decentralization and peer production. Through OpenAir, people are discovering ways to get involved in carbon removal that draws on their unique backgrounds and experiences - which will help make the field more dynamic and diverse.Chris Neidl is the co-founder of OpenAir, a global volunteer collective launched in 2019 to advance carbon dioxide removal (CDR) through member-driven advocacy and research and development missions. In this role Chris has helped lead CDR focused policy advocacy campaigns at the municipal, state and national levels including the Low Embodied Carbon Concrete Leadership Act (LECCLA), the Carbon Dioxide Removal Leadership Act (CDRLA), and the Luxembourg Negative Emissions Tariff (L-NET) Chris came to DAC and CDR from a fifteen year career in solar energy, which spanned diverse research, activist and project management roles in North America, South Asia, Afghanistan and East Africa. Chris is an upstate New York native and long-time Brooklyn resident currently based in Puntarenas, Costa Rica.In this episode, Na’im and Chris talk about:* How working internationally informed their views on approaching climate change with a global perspective* The origin of OpenAir Collective and embracing “peer-production” to empower its members* Initiatives like New York State’s Carbon Dioxide Removal Leadership Act and This Is CDR* OpenAir’s role in advancing a federal Carbon Dioxide Removal Leadership Act* Zooming out on the carbon removal field more broadly - what’s working well and what’s not* How people can get involved in OpenAir If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to this podcast on your favorite podcast app or subscribe via The Carbon Curve newsletter here. If you’d like to get in touch with Na’im, you can reach out via Twitter and LinkedIn.Na’im Merchant is an advisor and thought partner to start-ups, policy groups, and research organizations on scaling up the climate technologies to meet the monumental challenge removing billions of tons of CO2 from the atmosphere to combat climate change. Every two weeks, Na’im will release a short interview with individuals advancing bold new ideas and taking a collective action approach to scaling up carbon removal. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit carboncurve.substack.com

Introducing The Carbon Curve Podcast with Na’im MerchantNa’im is an advisor and thought partner to start-ups, policy groups, and research organizations on scaling up the climate technologies to meet the monumental challenge removing billions of tons of CO2 from the atmosphere. According to the IPCC, large scale carbon dioxide removal is “essential” to meeting our climate goals - but few people know about carbon removal, how critical a tool it is in combating climate change, or the ways they can have an impact on this field.Na’im launched The Carbon Curve newsletter in 2021 to start chipping away at this problem. Now he’s launching this podcast to profile the work of inspiring entrepreneurs, activists, scientists, and policy experts pushing the boundaries on what’s possible on carbon removal - with the aim of inspiring more people to get involved in the space.Every two weeks, Na’im will release a short interview with one of these impressive individuals advancing bold new ideas and taking a collective action approach to scaling up carbon removal. Jason Hochman and the Direct Air Capture CoalitionOur first episode is with Jason Hochman (Twitter, LinkedIn), Co-Founder and Senior Director of the Direct Air Capture Coalition. The DAC Coalition brings together technology companies and partners to advance deployment of DAC, with over 25 members, and 10 partners and observers to date. As the carbon removal field grows, coalitions like this will be necessary to create the ecosystem for new DAC technologies to flourish. In this episode, Na’im and Jason talk about:* The origins and mission of the DAC Coalition* DAC Coalition’s membership* The DOE’s $3.5 billion DAC Hubs Initiative* Is DAC getting too much funding/attention?* Reframing carbon removal from being a burden to an inclusive, global opportunityIf you like this episode, please subscribe to this podcast on your favorite podcast app or subscribe via The Carbon Curve newsletter here. If you’d like to get in touch with Na’im, you can reach out via Twitter and LinkedIn. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit carboncurve.substack.com