Carbon Removal Jobs Newsletter Issue #8

Pick of 10 Jobs, Verra scandal and Australia carbon trading scheme

Author

Olivia de Csillery
February 03, 2023

The Carbon Removal Jobs Newsletter

Happy Friday! 

As I sat down to write this month’s newsletter, I found myself engrossed in news about developments in carbon capture. But insiders can forget that those starting to explore the space may forgivably fail to realise that carbon removal and carbon capture are NOT the same thing (even if carbon removal’s most prominent technology is called direct air capture - pretty confusing!). If you find yourself in need of a refresher, Na’im Merchant has written a great article on this crucial distinction.

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In this newsletter, you’ll find some of the latest jobs found by Carbon Removal Jobs as well as:

  • Our top job picks since our last edition

  • The biggest news stories from the industry

  • A great CDR project that needs highlighting

  • The best resources for job-seekers

Feedback? What works and what doesn’t in the newsletter? Is there anything you’d like to see next time? Any parts you skipped over? Please reply to this email!

Now onto the good stuff...

10 awesome jobs in CDR 💼

In each edition, we pick out 10 of the 100+ jobs that are added to Carbon Removal Jobs between issues. Find all open roles on the site or catch every new role on our Twitter.

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Staying updated on carbontech 📰

In a disappointing development, new research has found that 90% of rainforest carbon offsets from the biggest certifier, Verra, are worthless - although Verra strongly contest the findings

In a nine month investigation, the Guardian, Germany weekly Die Zeit and investigative journalism non-profit organisation SourceMaterial found damning evidence that the carbon offsets did not live up to their promises. Only a handful of Verra’s rainforest projects showed evidence of deforestation reductions, the threat to forests had been overstated by an average of about 400% and human rights issues were found to be a serious concern in at least one of the offsetting projects. Verra have strongly contested the claims, but the findings have rocked the carbon removal world - and make the development of high quality, permanent, verifiable and additional offsets all the more important.

CDR Terra have launched their first “State of CDR” report

The report highlights once again the importance of CDR to limiting global warming to below 1.5°C. All modelled pathways that limit global warming to 1.5°C or 2°C involve substantial levels of CDR between 2020 and 2100, ranging from 450 to 1,100 GtCO₂. Currently 99.9% of carbon removals come from land management, primary afforestation or reforestation, with just 0.1% coming from CDR methods such as direct air capture. As the Verra news highlights, we need to rapidly scale up solutions other than forest conservation. The report has found that novel CDR techniques need to increase by a factor of 30 by 2030 (and up to 540 in some scenarios) and by a factor of 1,300 by 2050 - highlighting that there is still a lot of work to be done!

Australia look like they are well on their way to creating a verified carbon trading scheme

The Australian Carbon Credit Unit Scheme developed under the Emissions Reductions Fund has been found by an independent review to be “essentially sound” and “fundamentally well-designed.” The review examined governance arrangements and legislative requirements of the scheme and the integrity of key methods used. Crucially, it considered the broader impact of carbon projects on agriculture, biodiversity, the participation of First Nation people and regional communities. We hope that this scheme will prove to be a boost for the Aussie carbon removal companies on our platform, like Loam and Perennial.

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Giving CDR projects their flowers 💐

The ocean covers about 70% of the world’s surface, is the largest long-term sink for anthropogenic CO2 and can store much more carbon than the atmosphere. It’s no wonder that researchers have been puzzling over how to unlock the potential of this huge asset to speed up the carbon removal process. However, harnessing the carbon removal capabilities of a rapidly shifting and complex ecosystem such as the ocean is no easy task. 

This is where Running Tide comes in, a global ocean health company aiming to rebalance the carbon cycle by moving fast carbon back to slow using a range of technologies. Running Tide say we have less real time data about the ocean than we do about space, and how are we meant to develop successful ocean based carbon removal systems without fully understanding what we are working with? Running Tide have now deployed two separate constellations of ocean observatory platforms out of their base in Iceland to try to rectify this situation. The ocean observation platforms are loaded with sensors and underwater machine vision cameras, which provide an unprecedented live stream of data and imagery. The aim is to use this data to better understand how carbon removal systems move through the ocean. Running Tide hope that their verification system will allow them to begin generating the world’s first verifiable ocean carbon removal credits in 2023. We will be watching this space with anticipation to see how they get on!

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Top resources for job-seekers

A running list of resources that we have found helpful for finding a career in carbon removal. Reply to this email if you have any further suggestions

  • Airminers Community - Slack community of founders, scientists, investors working on mining carbon from the air. 

  • Airminers Boot-up - Brilliant way to get learned on CDR. Join a cohort and form a reading group that takes you through the basics of the industry.

  • Work on Climate - Slack community dedicated to helping those find a job in climate (plus events and more)

  • Terra.do - App for all things work in climate related. Includes university style courses, networking opportunities and more.

  • Open Air Collective - Crack-team of activists working to advance the CDR industry. The best place to get involved in a carbon removal project today.

  • Carbon Curve substack - High quality, in-depth interviews and takes from the industry. Na’im also regularly shouts out job opportunities he finds.

  • Climatebase - A job board for the climate industry as a whole as well as offering a fellowship and other career-boosting services. Sometimes difficult to find carbon removal jobs.

  • Nori Podcast- Highlights the resources above and provides personal experience on pursuing a career in carbon removal.

  • NEW CTVC: platform tracking the climate economy. Also have a jobs board for the wider climate space

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