The CDR Policy Scoop
The CDR Policy Scoop
Podcast Description
Get the Scoop on the latest CDR policy developments with Eve Tamme and Sebastian Manhart.Punchy, unfiltered, to the point discussions on all hot developments in the sector. Listen in to go several levels deeper and beyond the analysis that you won't find anywhere else. Enjoy. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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The show focuses on the intricacies of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) policies, exploring topics such as the implications of like-for-like concepts, the EU's funding strategies for CDR, and the political landscape impacting CDR in light of U.S. elections. Episodes provide in-depth analysis, like the discussion on the CRCF as a CDR certification standard and the EU's 2040 climate targets.
Get the Scoop on the latest carbon removal developments across policy, markets, and tech with Eve Tamme and Sebastian Manhart.
Punchy, unfiltered, to the point discussions on all the hottest developments in the sector.
Listen in to go several levels deeper and beyond the analysis that you won't find anywhere else. Enjoy.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
In this episode of The Carbon Removal Scoop, Sebastian Manhart sits down with Rudy Kahsar, Principal at RMI and a founding member of its carbon removal team, to dig into the New Frontiers Report for CDR. The report traces up to three decades of progress across 14 carbon removal approaches to work out where the next breakthroughs could come from, and Rudy's answer to the question he gets asked most, which pathway to go all in on, is not the one most people expect.
Rudy makes the case that the technologies doing most of the removing in 2050 may not exist yet, and that breakthroughs tend to arrive when experts from one field wander into another. Policy sits outside the report's scope, but his message to policymakers is clear: rather than writing rigid rules around one or two of today's approaches, set aside some funding and regulatory attention for the approaches nobody has invented yet. Sebastian, who has long argued against picking winners this early, needs little convincing.
The conversation then turns to the numbers. RMI built bottom-up cost stacks for every approach across eight shared categories, using generative AI for the first pass before testing it with companies and experts, and Rudy explains why the future cost stacks are aspirational scenarios rather than predictions. Sebastian contrasts that transparency with the black-box cost estimates that have made their way into the EU ETS proposal.
They close on some of the report's boldest bets, from engineered crops that lock carbon away more durably to the convergence of AI, drones and sensors, and on direct air capture, where Rudy is blunt about cost. Tune in to hear why he thinks an outdoor clothing brand could be an unlikely ally for carbon removal.
LINKS
- Sebastian Manhart: LinkedIn and Website
- Rudy Kahsar: LinkedIn and RMI profile
- RMI: Website
- The New Frontiers Report for CDR (RMI, October 2026)
- RMI: Beyond the First Frontier: What Comes Next for Carbon Removal
- Mining's Untapped Removals Opportunity — with Cara Maesano
- What Does CDR Actually Cost in Europe? — with Hansjörg Lerchenmüller and Eadbhard Pernot
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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