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About cCarbon
cCarbon (pronounced ‘see-carbon’) specializes in providing business intelligence, analytics, and forecasts for global environmental markets. It was founded in 2012 as CaliforniaCarbon.info, with a focus on serving the Western Climate Initiative (WCI) market: covering both allowances and compliance offsets. Since then, we have expanded our services to offer comprehensive coverage across global compliance and voluntary carbon markets, sustainable fuels markets, and other environmental commodity markets.
Organizations seeking in-depth research for decarbonization, compliance strategies, climate investments, and forecasting environmental markets, leverage our suite of analytics and data tools. Our analysts also create bespoke information-tools and tailor-made solutions for our clients.
Markets we cover:
cCarbon is a division of cKinetics, a US-based, global sustainability specialist, providing solutions for investors, businesses and policy makers.
For more details visit www.cCarbon.info
State of Sector 2025 –Investment in Carbon Removals
The data is clear: over $9.8 billion has poured into carbon dioxide removal (CDR), and the market has produced 12 million tons of annual removal capacity so far. Capital efficiency across different CDR types is going to be a core parameter to track over the coming years .
Some of the key insights:
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Capital Efficiency Under Focus- For every billion dollars invested, about a million tons of annual removal capacity has been secured. Increasing the rate of sequestration for every dollar invested, presents an opportunity for growth and innovation. Intellectual property is being created to enable that. The report documents the patents created and filed across geographies and sectors.
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Public vs. Private Support – Nearly half of all funding comes from public and philanthropic sources. With $4.5 billion in grants almost matching $4.9 billion in private equity, the industry still relies heavily on non-commercial capital to bridge risk and unlock scale.
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Concentrated Demand – In 2024, Microsoft alone accounted for 80% of all high-durability CDR pre-purchases. That level of concentration poses serious risk to market stability and growth.
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A Two-Track Market Is Emerging
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Track 1 – Commercially viable solutions like BECCS and Afforestation/Reforestation are stacking revenue streams and attracting institutional capital. These models are already bankable—and scaling.
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Track 2 – Long-term, transformative technologies like DAC are still in the early innings. They’re being fueled by patient capital and bold public programs like the U.S. DAC Hubs, with an eye toward gigaton-scale removals in the decades ahead.
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Flight to Quality – A necessary shakeout is coming. As speculative hype fades, capital will shift toward operational excellence and delivery certainty. This “flight to quality” will reward companies that can scale with stability—and survive the leap from voluntary markets to compliance integration.
CDR is no longer a niche play. It’s evolving into a sector with real infrastructure, complex supply chains, and rising expectations. The next phase will require not just vision, but execution. And as policymakers move toward incorporating carbon removal into compliance markets, the stakes—and the opportunities—are only getting higher.
Whether you’re an investor, policymaker, project developer, or curious observer, this report is essential reading. It’s time to move beyond the hype and face the hard numbers. This is the real state of the sector—and the future of carbon removal starts here.