Investing in Carbon Dioxide Removals (CDR)| White Paper| July 2025

Opportunities, Challenges, Solutions and Lessons Learned While Building a Carbon Negative Economy

Summary From London Carbon Removal Investor Conclave 2025

This white paper summarizes the discussion from the Investor Conclave held at the Carbon Removal Investment Summit in London in June 2025 (https://LondonSummit.cCarbon.info/).

32 investors and capital enablers, who have collectively deployed or arranged USD 3 billion+ in the CDR space, participated in a pre-meeting survey, followed by an in-person discussion under Chatham House rules. The discussion was coordinated by cKinetics’ carbon markets team, cCarbon.

Key Takeaways: Investing in CDR

• Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) as a sector is very nascent in its stage of evolution. An annual capacity of about 12 million tons of CO2e removal has been created, whereas requirements are for 10 giga tons per year by 2050.

• A carbon-negative economy will create several trillions of dollars in value in the next 25 years. The ecosystem will consist of all types of removal solutions: engineered and nature-based. Solutions are still emerging, so expect disruption and different economics in 10-15 years.

• Most of the projects are long gestation in nature. Like infrastructure projects, they will require different financing types for different stages; and will require long-term financing.

• Most types of CDR solutions enable projects that have co-benefits and multiple revenue streams.

• Policy and regulatory support are necessary. Fiscal support for long-term offtake will be key since corporate support will be insufficient to meet the scale-up requirements.

• Given the different kinds of CDRs, it is important to create a standardized framework for measuring and verifying carbon removal.  At some point, policy is likely to frame definition on what constitutes as sequestration.

• Financing today’s projects also requires broader stakeholder engagement to address risk and volatility. Hedging and insurance solutions need to emerge in the near term.

Acknowledgments

We are thankful to Mauricio Benitez, Big Valley, Paul Davies, Coalition for Negative Emissions, Charlotte Lehrman, Mirova, Philip Moss, Global 1000 Challenge, Carlota Ochoa Neven du Mont, Extantia, Benjamin Schulz, Altitude Carbon, Andrew Shebbeare, Counteract, Tobias Seikel, Planet A Ventures, Benedikt von Butler, Restoration Climate, Atilla Yucel, Negative Emissions Platform.

We are also thankful to the many others that contributed to this note and have requested to remain anonymous.

Authors from cKinetics

• Pawan Mehra

• Arpit Soni

• Nikhil Agarwal

• Harry Horner

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