Investing in Removal: Reflections from The Carbon Removal Investment Summit 2025
Last Tuesday, I swapped the studio for the varnished wood-panelled splendour of Fishmongers’ Hall on the Thames. cKinetics convened their inaugural Carbon Removal Investment Summit and, surrounded by livery crests and the bustle of 200-odd financiers, project developers and policy wonks, I was there on behalf of The Carbon Removal Show to take the pulse of an industry that’s becoming (don’t jinx it Tom) hot property.
Setting the scene
Since the Paris Agreement, money has been trickling into removal. By cCarbon’s latest count, $9.8 billion USD of capital commitments have been announced across equity, grants and early project debt. But if the summit made one thing clear, it’s that this is still in ‘primordial soup’ stage: 12 Mt CO₂e of annual capacity exists today, a rounding-error compared with the billions it is forecasted will be needed.
Five things I took away
Debt finance has arrived - but only just
Standard Chartered’s Chris Leeds walked us through the bank’s first removal loan, a three-way deal with British Airways and UNDO that hinges on specialist insurance to make the numbers bankable. It’s a template others can copy, but the term-sheet gymnastics required show how far we are from straight forward project finance.Demand projections keep overshooting reality
A major ratings house reminded us that corporations have only taken delivery of 2.7 % of the removals they’ve contracted so far. Inflation, higher interest rates and jittery supply chains curb discretionary spend, especially when removal still feels more philanthropic than strategic for many CFOs.Compliance markets will be the game-changer
Through a UK lens, Paul Davies from the Coalition for Negative Emissions argued that allowing high-quality removals into the UK & EU ETS could flip the market from niche to industrial. Offset today and you fuel project pipelines; pay the carbon tax and your cash disappears into general revenue. When boards grasp that distinction, the demand curve could steepen fast.Don’t hold your breath for $100tCO2e anytime soon
A slide that drew murmurs showed every major pathway—DAC, BECCS, biochar, ERW—still comfortably north of $150 except in the rosiest megaton scenarios, and we won’t see those prices until the mid-2030s. For now, “high margins attract capital” was the mantra; affordability comes later, with scale.“Perfect” is still the enemy of “built”
Over coffee I heard founders worry more about reputational risk than technical risk: one leak, one dodgy methodology, and investors vanish. Yet the clock is ticking. As Marta Krupinska from CUR8 put it, “CDR is going to be the back-stop for the failure of decarbonisation.” Waiting for flawless MRV or one-size-fits-all standards simply isn’t an option.
Questions the summit left hanging
Is venture capital the right fuel for this industry? Several speakers hinted that VC time-horizons clash with slow-burn infrastructure plays (pretty much every CDR pathway). Are we setting start-ups up to fail by demanding hockey-stick growth in inherently capital-intensive businesses? We’ve seen high-profile, VC backed companies go under recently: Running Tide, Nori, even Climeworks announced layoffs recently.
Who carries early-stage risk? Insurance products (shout-out to Kita and CFC) help, but someone still underwrites under-delivery, political shifts or price crashes. Will multilateral lenders or sovereign guarantees step in—or are buyers prepared to pay a “fear premium” for the privilege?
How do we prioritise pathways? The money is lumpy: ARR and BECCS attract big cheques thanks to land or power co-benefits, while marine and soil carbon scrape for seed rounds despite compelling long-term potential. Do we need public procurement targets to ensure portfolio diversity?
Can we streamline contracts? Lawyers talked force majeure, change-in-law and buffer pools until my notepad groaned. Standardised offtake templates could shave months off deals and cut legal fees that currently dwarf some pilot budgets.
A personal note
What struck me most was the mood. Yes, financiers are famously risk-averse, but the conversations felt less if and more how soon. Axel Reinaud from biochar producer, Net Zero, framed net zero as non-negotiable; Martin Berg of Climate Asset Management begged for clearer corporate guidance rather than “magic-up-your-own” strategies. The industry is still juvenile—“like aviation in 1919” yet the pilots are already taxiing to the runway.
Looking ahead
For The Carbon Removal Show this summit was a treasure trove of information. It’s given us plenty of food for thought as we take a break after releasing our policy mini-series and look to new episodes later this year. We’ll be sure to sign up for next year’s summit.
Topics I’d love to dig into further include:
Bankability – unpacking that BA/ UNDO facility.
Reality-check on cost curves – when and why $100 will matter (and why we shouldn’t fixate on that right now)
Until then, my headline is simple: the slow, lumbering capital is waking up. The next twelve months will decide whether it sprints or merely stretches. And as ever, we’ll be here, microphone in hand, following the money AND the carbon it pulls back down to earth.
Some snaps of the day:
