As countries around the world continue to pump planet-warming pollution into the skies, driving global temperatures to record levels, the financial world is racing to fund the emerging field of carbon dioxide removal, seeking both an environmental miracle and a financial windfall.
The technology, which did not exist until a few years ago, is still unproven at scale. Yet, it has a uniquely alluring appeal. Stripping away some of the carbon dioxide that is heating up the world makes intuitive sense. And with a small but growing number of companies willing to pay for it, investors are jockeying to be first movers in what they believe will inevitably be a big industry that is necessary to help fight global warming.
Companies working on ways to pull carbon dioxide from the air have raised more than $5 billion since 2018, according to the investment bank Jefferies. Before that, there were almost no such investments.
“It’s the single greatest opportunity I’ve seen in 20 years of doing venture capital,” said Damien Steel, the chief executive of Canada-based Deep Sky, which has raised more than $50 million to develop carbon dioxide removal projects. “The tailwinds behind the industry are greater than most industries I’ve ever looked at.”
It's a strategy that should be pursued but, it can't have any major impact anytime soon. “We need to obey the first law of holes,” …“When you’re in one, stop digging.”The New Climate Gold Rush: Scrubbing Carbon From the Sky https://t.co/Lwlh8Zfeir
— Prof. Peter Doherty (@ProfPCDoherty) December 23, 2024
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