 We've heard during the previous very interesting session how innovation has been driving in the semiconductor industry. We'll try to focus in this one on how innovation can also help on climate. So following the COP 27 Paris Agreement, countries now representing about 90% of world GDP have pledged to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050. Carbon is also very high on all corporate boards agenda, following pressure from investors, but also customers, and increasingly stringent regulation. More and more corporates are publicly stating their targets to net zero and are actively working on their decarbonisation plans, which, by the way, very often translates into investments to modernise their industrial estates. But actively reducing the CO2 emission will not suffice. A gap estimated to 10 gigatons of CO2 per year is estimated that will have to be removed from the atmosphere, moving forward via nature-based solutions like reforestation or via technology-based solutions, namely carbon capture and sequestration solutions. As a result, energy transition and decarbonisation require massive investments. And as outlined and stressed by IMF recently, there is so much that public budgets can fund on this front. So many countries, like Canada, Sweden or Singapore, have been imposing attacks on carbon emissions. And to foster proper behaviours, systems like emission-trading schemes are implemented in regions like Europe, whereby corporates are allocated based on their carbon intensity a given number of free quotas per year and overperformance can trade them on an exchange. The voluntary carbon market comes on top of these mandatory schemes or compliance markets. Issued on the back of carbon avoidance or removal projects, the carbon credits are purchased by corporates eager to accelerate their path to net zero. So they are a way to channel and fund projects and project developers that otherwise would be very hardly bankable under traditional project financing criteria. So some refer to carbon credits as to the currency of decarbonisation or the net of net zero. A few weeks ahead of COP28, this session is aimed at providing a little colour around the voluntary carbon market value chain. And it is my pleasure to host today the panellists representing innovative start-up solutions starting with Mariam Almansoori, general manager of Rebound. Sam Atwood, founder and CEO of Air Capture. Christine Inge-Larrison, head of CapFix business development and commercialisation. On Visio, we have Sam Gill, co-founder and CEO of Silvera. And we will start now with a video interview of Annette Nazaret, who is the chair of the board of the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Markets, actively working on the foundations, foundational principles of this market, which by nature is totally bottom-up and today unregulated. Let's listen to Annette Nazaret. It is my pleasure to open this panel about how can carbon credits contribute to net zero at the 2023 World Policy Conference with you today, Annette Nazaret. You are chairing the board of the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Markets. What would you say are the main challenges of the Voluntary Carbon Markets right now? And how is the Integrity Council role in that context? Well, first, thank you so much for inviting me to speak with you today. I'll speak of the challenges first. I'm very excited about the possibility, so I'll get the challenges out of the way. I think it's very, very clear that we have an enormous challenge in fighting climate change. We have a shared goal that really transcends markets, sectors, portfolios, and geographies. This is a critical moment in our history. And so the scale and urgency of the crisis really demands that we use every available tool. And as you know, we have emissions reductions as a centerpiece of this. And that is entirely appropriate. Decarbonization by corporates of their own operations and supply chains must be a priority. But unfortunately, it's too late now just to rely solely on corporate internal emissions reductions or even government action. And that's where the voluntary carbon market comes in. We have to accelerate our transition to net zero by using every tool in the toolbox. It's as UN Secretary General Guterres has said recently, we need everything everywhere and all at once. And so the voluntary carbon market can be a really important solution. But, and we're very, very focused on this, only if it is rooted in high integrity. It holds the power to unlock urgently needed finance that would not otherwise occur and or otherwise be available for projects without voluntary carbon credits. And to quantify the opportunity, the World Economic Forum has projected that the voluntary carbon market could remove 2.6 gigatons of CO2 by 2030. And Morgan Stanley projects that it could reach almost a hundred billion in volume by 2030. So the integrity council for the voluntary carbon market is an independent governance body committed to establishing high integrity voluntary carbon markets that can deliver real impact at speed and scale. And as I said earlier, it has the power to unlock private capital for projects to reduce and remove billions of tons of emissions that would not otherwise be viable. The other exciting thing is that it can channel funding to countries in the global south and help develop vibrant green economies. And it will support sustainable development goals by requiring all new projects to make a positive contribution to sustainable development as well as having robust measures to protect people and the environment. But we know that today it's a relatively nascent market. It's unregulated. And if it's to scale and to live and to deliver on its climate goals, we need to address some of the critical issues that have arisen. So today the quality of credits in the market is at best inconsistent. Trading is fragmented and opaque and not all carbon crediting programs impose consistent high quality standards. So ultimately it's fair to say that the voluntary carbon market today doesn't consistently meet the expectations of purchasers or the urgent needs of our planet. And this is a significant problem that limits the full potential to meet our climate goals. So we think we need to address a number of things. One is certainly standardization. Carbon crediting programs each have their own methodologies. They have differing rules of engagement and highly bespoke transactions that don't provide an environment for liquidity and transparency. Indeed, they create challenging market impediments. So we've created a global benchmark for high integrity carbon credits. The integrity council recently published the CCP's. Could you give us more color about the CCP's? Sure, I'd be happy to talk about the CCP's and importantly how they underpin integrity. There are 10 core carbon principles and they fall into three categories. Those that relate to emissions impact, to governance and to sustainability. You know, it's really important that buyers have confidence that carbon credits are making genuine impacts on emissions. Carbon credits must fund reductions or removals that are additional, meaning that they would not have occurred in the absence of the incentive created by the carbon credit revenues. They have to be permanent. They have to be measured robustly and conservatively and they can only be claimed by one party, which means there's no double counting of the credit. Programs that issue the credits also must meet high standards of governance to ensure that the overall quality of carbon credits is high. They have to provide comprehensive and transparent information on the projects, issuing the credits so that people understand their impact on emissions, society and the environment. They have to use a registry that uniquely identifies and tracks each credit from issuance to retirement or cancellation. And they have emissions reductions or removals verified by independent third party experts. And importantly, the CCPs also break new ground by requiring programs to ensure that high integrity credits come from projects with robust social and environmental safeguards that also deliver positive sustainable development impacts. That is, they make sustainable development a central part of the mitigation activity, not just a co-benefit. They must also support the transition to net zero and not lock in fossil fuel emissions or technologies. So in July, we published our CCP rule book, which sets out the rigorous criteria we use to assess whether programs and categories of credits meet our high integrity threshold. Programs that we approve will be able to use the CCP label on credits, provided they have come from categories that we have also approved. So what do you see also on the corporate side, right? On the demand side, what do you see on the critical path to improve the voluntary carbon market? Well, on the corporate side, it's important not only that we offer a supply of very high integrity carbon credits, but that corporates are using carbon credits appropriately. And so the demand side of the equation is also critically important. And we're working very closely with what we call our sister organization, the voluntary carbon markets integrity initiative. And VCMI is focused on the appropriate use of credits. So basically at the integrity council, we're focused on the supply of credits and also on the ensuring that they, the markets on which they trade are high integrity. And of course we're looking at market mechanisms such as transparency and trade reporting and settlement issues. But VCMI is then focused on the demand side. So we like to say that together we are creating end to end integrity in the voluntary carbon market. No, that's important because that's working from supply to demand. So when looking forward, what would success look like for the integrity council? How will you measure it? Well, of course, we're very interested in seeing the market scale up. As I've said, we don't want to scale the market unless it is rooted in high integrity. But we believe that there's enormous potential. And so, and in fact, we know that there's demand for high integrity products. And thus we expect them to trade at a premium. And trading at a premium of course would create powerful incentives for project developers to enhance their practices to come in line with our core carbon principles. And we expect the CCP's to drive continual improvement in the quality and impact of carbon reduction projects ensuring that the market's contribution to emissions reduction aligns with the urgency of the climate crisis. I think the CCP's will also establish standardized criteria that will drive a shift towards increased transparency but also exchange based trading. Because when we have greater standardization, I believe a larger proportion of carbon credit trading will transition from what we have today, which is uniformly bilateral agreements to transactions conducted through exchanges. And this transition would not only enhance market efficiency but will also provide a platform for buyers and sellers to engage in transparent and fair pricing which would drive broader market participation and liquidity. I mean, I should note when we talk about standardization, I've often been asked, well, what are the CCP's to some extent, what can you analogize to that I understand? And I like to say that the CCP's are akin to listing standards. It's as if we've imposed traditional regulatory principles onto the voluntary carbon market. So if you think of these CCP's as listing standards, the other element of them is that they also require not just a focus on essentially self-regulation of the product by the listing standards but also self-regulation of the programs that issue the credits. And so bringing those principles to the market, I believe will create greater confidence in the market just as we have confidence in other high integrity, robust capital markets. And that's what we're seeking. We're seeking confidence, justifiable confidence based on high integrity. Frankly, we also expect robust trading of futures on voluntary carbon markets as the markets become more standardized. And that I think will create very important price signal because it will improve hedging mechanisms for market participants. It will provide important price signals. It'll also give project developers better ability to manage their exposure to price risk. And this I think will make it less risky to launch new projects, again, particularly in the global South. So by implementing the core carbon principles and encouraging market participants to embrace these high integrity credits, we're creating an ecosystem where the value of emissions reductions are appropriately recognized and rewarded. And this will unlock, I believe, greater capital flows and drive innovation and catalyze the development and deployment of truly impactful climate solutions. Thank you, Annette. This is really very insightful and no doubt. We're looking forward to the success of this entire ecosystem effort because that's what we're talking about for the benefit of, of course, climate change and in general, mankind. Thank you very much for your participation. It's been a pleasure. Thank you. Bye-bye. Okay, so now let's move to pragmatic examples of carbon capture and sequestration solutions and we'll start with you, Matt. Thank you for having made the trip out of the US to be with us today. So you have founded and you are the CEO of Air Capture. A nice name, by the way, for a carbon capture solution. Can you tell us what the solution is about? Yeah, I'm happy to. Thank you first very much for having us here today. So Air Capture is a company that develops direct air capture technology. And what we do is we build machines that have a fan and the fan pulls air through the machine and the CO2 carbon dioxide from the air is collected on the surface of substrates that are inside the fan. In about 15 minutes, we collect all the CO2 and then we inject heat in the form of typically waste steam or low temperature steam that releases the CO2 from the contactor surface which we then collect and try to do something useful with. But we're selling the CO2 into various different markets and converting it into different products such as fuels, beverage carbonation, agriculture. Interesting. And Matt, so at what stage are you in development of the solution and how fast can you bring it to industrial scale? That's a great question. So at present, what we are doing is we're commercializing the technology. So we've built several commercial machines based on a large scale development platform and we're working on selling the CO2 into a variety of different markets. What I like to say is that the world's economy runs on carbon. Carbon is in all the products that we use and many of the products that run the global economy. So we're primarily working in beverage carbonation. We're producing dry ice for the cold chain. CO2 is used very predominantly in agricultural purposes. We have projects converting CO2 into chemicals and fertilizers, plastics, even battery materials for the energy transition and fuels and energy products. Wonderful. So thank you. We'll come back to you in a moment. I'd like now to move to Christine. Christine, with Carfix, you're downstream in the value chain compared to carbon capture. So what is Carfix about? So thank you for inviting me over here. So Carfix, what we do, we are simply imitating mother nature's way of storing CO2. So with that in mind, our mission is to significantly contribute in the climate recovery by continuously innovating by ways of improving how we can actually store CO2 by mineralization. How we do that, I'm drinking here Pellegrino sparkling water. So what we do, we simply dissolve CO2 just like this and we inject it into the ground where it starts to mineralize into the bedrock itself. So we are not injecting gases, we are injecting sparkling water that has the ability, mother nature's ability to mineralize into the bedrock. So if you move to the next slide please, just as a simple chemical components in the bedrock itself, in our case, we need three ingredients. First, we need CO2. The second, we need basaltic rock. And the third, we need water. What we do here, we dissolve the CO2 in water and then we gently inject it into the bedrock. Once it reaches the bedrock at a very, very low depth, somewhere around an average 500 meters, it starts to mineralize. So the catonic ions in the bedrock itself, they get released and the mineralization process takes place. The easiest way to explain it is that the water is the means of transport. So we can say that the water is the train and the CO2 is the passenger. And once the train reaches the bedrock, the CO2 jumps off the train and the water carries on. So we are borrowing the water for a few, few minutes but the mineralization, this happens in less than two years instead of what usually happens in millions of years and this is a permanent solution. That's impressive. So first of all, congratulations in the previous slide. We've seen that CapFix has made the cover page of National Geographic Recent Issue. This is great. And also recently you've signed an important contract with the European Union to sequestrate carbon in Iceland. Does it mean that CapFix can only operate in Iceland? No, Iceland is, we are an Icelandic company. So obviously we have been piloting this and demonstrating this for quite some time. So originally, CapFix was a research project between three universities. US, Columbia University, New York, Iceland, University of Iceland and CNRS of the Toulouse in France with the ambition of replicating modern nature's way. This is based upon Persat. Persat is not only limited to Iceland. It covers approximately 5% of all land on earth but approximately 70%, 70% of the ocean floor. So it definitely is not limited to Iceland but Iceland is the origin of the research project and the company so we are now exploring the globe as we can say. Okay, world well ambition then, wonderful. Well, we have, it's not a problem that's limited to UAE, US, Japan or Iceland. It's a global problem. So we have to address it like that. Absolutely. So carbon capture, sequestration, you are so-called in the value chain project developers. Let's now turn to the third party assessor with Silvera. So Sam, Sam Gill is co-founder and CEO of Silvera. We've heard from Annette Nazaret how the principles are important to set the basis for proper qualification of projects from a carbon credit emissions standpoint. So Sam, with Silvera, what's the role of a third party? How would you feature your role in the value chain? Thank you so much. So yeah, just to introduce Silvera and maybe we move on to the next slide. Silvera is a company that's providing data to the whole private sector but also the public sector to try and power the transition. So giving data that's actually showing the impacts and the climate impacts of various investments that are made by the public sector or the private sector. And so when we're working in the carbon markets, what we're trying to do is empower participants with data to show the real kind of impact of any projects that they're investing in. And what we produce is essentially a ratings product showing the relative quality of each carbon offset project. So the individual project that a corporate or a public sector participant might be investing in. And so the difference there when you compare our work with the ICVCM is as Annette says, essentially the ICVCM is trying to produce listing standards. So almost a quality floor. And the ICVCM is applying those CCPs at the program the crediting program and the methodology level. Whereas what we do is we actually assess at the project level using very similar pillars of assessment. So for example, our ratings actually assess the CCPs that relate to climate integrity, but we're doing that at a project level. And so the three key pillars of quality that we look at are the carbon performance of the project. So assessing the carbon accounting that the project produces itself. So if it was, for example, a direct air capture project, we'd be looking at the life cycle analysis of the project, looking at the displacement effects of the power consumption. Or if, for example, we were looking at forestry protection project, we'd be assessing using our own machine learning and satellite data. We'd be assessing whether the reporting that the project produces accurate. So looking at how has the project actually protected the amount of trees that it's claimed, how much carbon is stored in those trees, how much carbon is stored in the soil around it. And so we're essentially using an independent technological stack to assess the claims of the project. The second thing we do is we look at the additionality of the project. So looking at the counterfactual the project's based on. And again, assessing at the project level whether the methodology has been assessed and applied in an appropriate way or whether there's been an over-crediting risk that's been introduced. And then the third thing we look at is the durability of these projects. So essentially what we're doing again is using a methodology or technology stack to assess independently the claims of the project at the project level so that we can give with a high degree of accuracy in assessment of the quality of each individual project. So it's a very complimentary approach to the methodology level assessments that are being applied by the ICBCM, yeah. Yeah, great. And definitely your bridging corporate demand to the project level. So we've heard efforts on the ICBCM front. What would you see as the key factors for boosting the voluntary carbon market moving forward given your position in the value chain, Sam? That's a really interesting question. In many ways, that's the million-dollar question. I think, you know, I spend a lot of time with C-suite executives in the private sector but also policymakers around the globe who are kind of wrestling with this. And I think, you know, and that really helpfully split the problem into two sides. You've got the supply side quality problem and then you've got the demand side integrity problem. On the supply side, I think we're very close to getting to an answer. The data sort of approaches that are being applied by folks like ourselves, Silvera and others are allowing us to get to with quite a high degree of accuracy and granularity and assessment of the quality of any individual project. And we're also increasingly strengthening the methodologies that they use to produce these credits. But I think what the world needs to agree on is what is the paradigm that we're working to? We're not going to be able to get to absolute 100% a certainty on the accounting around any of these projects, frankly. And we also need to come to a clear paradigm around the permanence or durability requirements that we're going to ask the market to meet. So for example, if we were all to agree that if, you know, a carbon credit needs to be stored storing carbon for 100 years, for example, to be acceptable, that would allow the market to start engineering, for example, horizontal or vertical stacking approaches to allow different types of carbon to be used in portfolios. And it would allow us to start regularizing and standardizing the market. But at the moment, there's no clear consensus there on what the actual quality paradigm we're working towards is. So I think there needs to be a clear accepted consensus around the quality paradigm we're working towards. And then on the flip side, Annette refers to the work of the VCMI, which is the demand side integrity body. But again, what is needed is a much wider consensus around what are we asking corporates to do in terms of compensation? So where they're not able to reduce their emissions to absolute zero, what are we asking them to do? What do they get to claim if they compensate their emissions with carbon credits? And what benefit will they actually receive for that? Are they going to get tax breaks? Are they going to get preferential treatment in the capital markets? Are they going to be rewarded in some way? Because the private sector can't act as a charity. So I think that those consensus on the supply side integrity and the demand side integrity paradigms are completely necessary to allow the markets in our move forward and scale. Clearly, a typical market dynamic between supply and demand. So thank you, that's insightful, Sam. I'd like now to move to another area, which is important for climate in general. And Mariam, you're leading a rebound, which is an exchange for recycled plastic. Clearly, the overwhelming development of plastic production is deeply contributing to CO2 emission, but also is a massive waste issue for the planet and pollution is also bad for our health. So how is rebound helping on that front? So first of all, good morning, everyone. And it's my pleasure to be between all of you here today. Regarding rebound, what we want to solve is the plastic pollution problem. And given that virgin plastics is a valuable commodity, we believe that recycled plastics is just as equivalent. There is no scientifically and environmentally proven, as well as economically proven material that can substitute plastics today, mainly because it's a very versatile and useful material. Now, while there are certain types of plastics and additives and chemicals that need to be, let's say, deleted from the chain, there are many other precious types of plastics, which can be recycled and have a market for it. However, just like carbon markets, the recycling market of plastics specifically is very opaque and fragmented. So how do we build trust and transparency today between businesses, directly between buyers and sellers, globally around the world, to be able to facilitate the trade of recycled plastics in a quality assured and regulatory compliant manner? So that's exactly what we do and what we address. And of course, no better way to reach a global audience in a global market than through a platform. That's where digitalization comes in. That's where marketplaces come in. And that's where, I believe, a neutral facilitator such as ourselves helps facilitate this trade in a way where the private sector fulfills demand and supply gaps, but also the public sector is comfortable in the type of non-hazardous materials we're creating a market for. Wonderful, and by the way, you are the only Gulf startup having been awarded the label Tech Pioneer by the World Economic Forum earlier in the year. So congratulations. That's awesome. So definitely plastic waste collection and recycling comes with a cost. And this is very important. And this is why some are promoting the notion of extended producers' responsibility and also the notion of plastic credits to make the value chain affordable. So what's your view on that? So definitely, the recycling plastics market today faces a challenge of, you know, typically this is an economy and I have a background in finance. So, you know, I need to look for the dollar sign and when I started Rebound, I came to understand why there's a pollution problem because financially companies won't pay more to introduce recycled plastics in their finished product if the virgin plastic is cheaper. And we cannot just sit and wait for regulations to kick in and policies to enforce because how much can law enforce at the end of the day when it is applicable in one region but not applicable in the other? I also come from a government and policy background having worked for the cabinet of ministers. So I am aware of what, up to what can the public sector kind of lay on the ground but then how will the private sector start to react? So when it comes to credits in the plastics recycling space, it's important to offset that barter and negotiation price that buyers want to drive down. For instance, if today virgin PET is being sold at around $900 a ton, recycled PET is being sold at around $1,100 or $1,200 per ton. So that roughly $300 difference, the seller of the recycled plastics cannot drive the price as low as $900 because that means that they'll be operating at a loss and unfortunately that's why a lot of recyclers cannot stay in business. The opportunity that credits present here is that it's an alternative revenue model. So instead of just benefiting from selling off the tangible material, they can also benefit from selling the credits that are generated. And while some people might push for extended producer responsibility only on the producer side or pointing the finger at just one entity or one company will not help solve the pollution crisis, it's that entire value chain and stakeholder value chains including governments and municipalities that will help capture this material being separated at source, generate that collection credit, beyond that moving it to an ethically responsible and environmentally capable company which can recycle these plastics and then put it back into the market such as our marketplace where the buyer and seller can deal directly and there's that ultimate level of transparency when it comes to quality too. Interesting and clearly we see that solutions exist and technology is already here that can be used. The question is how fast can we deploy and how fast can we enforce adoption? So funding is on the critical path and affordability of these investments is also, plastic is also a perfect example. So Christine, it looks to me that the carpet solution of carbon sequestration into soil is pretty universal, right? You're talking about that there is a large component of oceans where we can apply this solution as an example. So can it be used also at point source solution and how is your solution is also in my view eligible to both compliance markets and voluntary carbon markets? So a dual source of financing. So what will it take to enforce wide adoption of your solution in particular? Yeah, very good question. I don't have the silver bullet, I mean the magic answer here, but in regards to how we are approaching things, yes, this solution that we are offering, we're not saying it is a silver bullet, but as was mentioned before by Annette, we need all the solutions. This solution can be applied on the voluntary market, yes, and it can also be applied on the mandatory market. If you look at my closest examples are European market, you have a trading scheme, ETS, where you have the government that has the stick on the companies. If you don't do this, you have to pay a certain tax or pay a certain fine. However, in the US, you're looking the carrot, where if you do this, you will be incentivized. So it doesn't really matter which method it is, and it will most likely be a combination of posts. You mentioned before, yes, we have had the privilege of starting this research in 2006. We incorporated the company three and a half years ago with the ambition to scale up and commercialize. We did receive a huge grant from the European Commission earlier last year, about 115 million euros to build the world's largest mineral storage site, which will be done in Iceland. So it is a combination of subsidizing or grants, but at the same time, the uniqueness of the Garfis technology, it is already economical. Just if you look at the entire value chain that we have two commercial operations in Iceland, the capturing, the transport, and the actual mineralization or the storage by mineralization is less than $25 per tonne. That's a very, very low number, but at the same time, it's a totally different aspect than others have. We need all the technologies. This is one of them, and our main objective is now to scale up on a global basis, and let's say be available, because we don't have time. Definitely we don't have time. That's also a question for you. The air capture solution is a deep engineering solution, so certainly it's capital intensive to develop long cycles. And how do you match these long cycles with the financing available on the market? Is it easy? And how do you see affordability moving forward? In other words, how costly is it for companies to remove carbon? How do you see your solution addressing this in a cost affordable way? That's a great question. I mean, I think it comes down to initially the question between avoidance and permanence. One pathway is to avoid carbon emissions, but that could also be counted as taking post-combustion emissions and sequestering them. A permanent removal is different. So what we're focused on is permanent removal of CO2 from the atmosphere by capturing the CO2 and then trying to do something useful with it. When you come to the question of scale and timeframe, this I think really focuses on us very much on our thesis, which is solve for scale. If we take a look at the latest IPCC's AR6 report and we look at the required time frames that are necessary in order to avoid two degrees of warming and we take a look at how much capacity addition of negative carbon infrastructure technology is required to have a reasonable confidence interval of avoiding the worst existential threats of climate change, it is quite significant. We're talking about needing to scale this technology to the point where we're at about 1.5 to 1.8 gigatons of new capacity year over year by 2045 and that's only to have about a 90% confidence interval of avoiding two degrees of warming. And I'll say here now that 1.5 degrees, avoiding 1.5 degrees is totally impossible. We will not achieve that goal. So our focus is how can we develop and scale technology as quickly as possible and get that technology to work and get on the learning curve. So we're focused on kind of two pathways. One is direct CO2 capture disequestration or working with injection sites like Carbfix is doing and we're developing projects in the US here in the UAE and in Oman where we're capturing CO2 from there and injecting it but these are long tail projects that are high capital intensity and require specifically offtake agreements for the carbon credits and the tenor of those offtake agreements has to match what it would require to finance those projects, that's a big problem. Right now in the market, especially within the VCM space, those offtakes are not necessarily bankable and we have to find a way to convert those carbon credit offtakes or bilateral agreements into scalable project financing and to move into that project financing as quickly as possible to get on the learning curve as quickly as possible. So I think the other side of the coin is where I see this technology having huge impact is in industrial decarbonization. Corporates can choose to inset this technology within their value chain and use the carbon dioxide directly within their products or to convert it into other products and this in many cases has a larger impact than even in permanent removal or storage because the carbon intensity of the incumbent CO2 supply is oftentimes two, three or four times the amount that's consumed. So one of the things that I think is challenging is as we move forward to the VCM and we think about how do we create new standards, new practices, and carbon principles, it makes a lot of sense on the nature-based side but as we develop new engineering and hard tech solutions and as we figure out how to deploy these solutions and get them financeable, we have to be careful not to box ourselves in too much. So issues around the question of permanence is a major issue because there are certainly examples where this technology can be used to offset existing emissions and it will have a bigger impact than taking that same molecule of CO2 and putting it into the ground. It may have a three to one or a five to one impact but that still wouldn't meet the permanence requirement. And then the question of additionality is very important because it is not necessarily, it should not necessarily be the case that a project requires, the project economics requires there to be a carbon market offtake in order to finance this infrastructure. That does two things. One is it makes the projects much harder to finance and less bankable. And two is it slows down the scale of adoption and the scale of adoption is I think the most critical part of getting the costs down, particularly as it relates to CDR technologies. Wright's law says if we double capacity, every doubling of capacity, we get about a 15 to 20% reduction in costs. So you can pick a random number right now in terms of how much it might cost to pull CO2 out of the air, call it $600 or $500 a ton. And you could say after about 60 plants that one builds, you could be well down the cost curve of well under $100 a ton, which we think is well within target of the technology we're developing. The question becomes how do you deploy that technology as rapidly as possible, get on that cost curve, but do it in a way that's financeable and bankable so that we can get to scale quickly? Definitely corporate adoption for their own industrial usage. And we see that both these solutions could be dual track, right? Both on reduction, avoidance and removal. It's either way to channel more funding. And this is absolutely needed to accelerate pace and wide adoption. So this is very insightful. Thank you. Maybe we have a couple of questions, a couple of minutes for questions if there are in the rooms before we break for lunch. Is there a micro? Yes, yes. Well, Friedpett Flueger from Berlin. I just want to say this was a fascinating debate. I learned a lot. And my question is to Mariam. We have the COP in front of us before us. So aren't these topics important enough to be placed in the very height of the COP agenda? I mean, we heard yesterday, Mr. Fabius, Mr. Fabius talking all the time about renewables, which of course we all know is very important. But the potential of getting CO2 out of the atmosphere or store it underground is so tremendous that we perhaps should put a stronger emphasis on CCS and carbon capture use in the COP process. And that would be fantastic if your country could pave the way for that. Of course, thank you so much. And as per what I'm aware of within the COP28 team, I do know that carbon is a very prominent topic. I think it's going to have the major focus of the conversations which would be driven. Given also the space of business that I'm in, I'm aware that a lot of carbon capture technologies, trades of carbon credits and exchanges are going to be coming soon. So I commend the COP28 team ahead of time, but I'm sure we'll all be happy and satisfied with the results once COP is over in Dubai. So, inshallah, more positive news soon. Sorry, additional question. Matt made this suggestion of financing startups in the direct air capture field, for instance. Isn't that also something where you should engage? We heard Mrs. Al-Mahiri yesterday saying that you want to put an emphasis on financing tools. So I think this is a wonderful idea of Matt, and if that could be part of the agenda of COP, it would be a tremendous success. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, so those are all very exciting solutions. The question is how do you scale them and what percentage of the overall problem do you think you could solve, you know, each of you in your different areas, of course? I can start. So from COP's point of view, we are commercial, so we are operating two projects in Iceland. The third one is about to start next year. The matter for the technology, it's not, we are replicating exactly how we're doing things. So it's a matter of injection wells. So it's a matter of finding the right subsurface, let's say the right geology. The cost for us is already there, the cost benefit. It's about policy. It's about regulations in each country, in each state. They are different. I mentioned before, I cannot emphasise timing is something we don't have, we don't have time. So coming here and educating people about the possibilities, that's the most important, but policy is the biggest obstacle, absolutely. Matt, on your view? I would second that notion, but I would also add that really I think project finance is at the core of the scalability issue. It provides two functions. First is the project development itself. So figuring out how we can make these projects bankable and scalable, independent of what the costs of the removal is or the product is at this point in time is on the critical path. Because as we scale the technology, even in the earliest stages and highest cost, highest risk of the technology, we are still able to beat the incumbent industrial gas or fuel companies on price parity by pulling CO2 out of the air and making the exact same product. That's without counting carbon credits or things like this. So if we can start banking these projects and scaling it, that will then enable us to start scaling the manufacturability of the facilities. And getting manufacturing up is what we're focusing on right now. So our vision is that these machines should be built like cars are built today. And how do we get from here to there? Once we achieve the automobile scale of manufacturing, our analysis is you ask a question about what size the problem could itself. If we made enough direct air capture machines that are roughly equivalent to the total number of automobiles manufactured per year today, that would solve 100% of the problem. Now, of course, direct air capture is not going to be 100% of the problem. And there's a question of the solution. And there's a question of energy cost and capital cost and all these things. But if we look at it as an infrastructural investment, we have to keep in mind that these negative carbon technologies are additive over the lifetime of the project. It's very different than renewables where you build a wind or solar plant and it doesn't produce carbon. Every year over the 20, 30 year lifetime of these assets, these are removing carbon dioxide. And so I think we have to take a different approach and a different policy approach to thinking about how we can backstop these financings, how we can provide technology performance guarantees and how we can provide credit worthy offtake agreements that are bankable. Wonderful. Any other question yet? Thank you very much. I'm Randy Quartier. I'm the head of the regional economic service in the south of France. So I'm also going to advertise for my country. We're investing a lot in carbon capturing so reach out if you want to invest in France. My question is, Christian, you mentioned $25 per ton. Matt, you mentioned something like 500, 600. Can you give us a ballpark estimate of where the industry is right now in terms of cost per ton captured and how far down the line can we go on that cost optimization that you mentioned as well? Thank you very much. I will start from. So we're looking at, I mean, we support one another. So Matt is starting by catching, I'm taking, and then getting rid of it. So together, we jointly do this. So from the storage part, this is a public paper we have published, so there's no secrets there. And transparency is of course very important here. So we do have our proprietary capturing technology to capture using water scrubber. That cost is approximately $20 per ton. But that's using a type taking directly from geothermal steam. We transport it and then we inject it into the ground. So the rest of the cost is less than $5. But this is a scenario in Iceland. So we are working on this large project we call the CODOTerminal, which is 3 million tons will be mineralized every year. Transported from mainland Europe to Iceland in a liquid form. The cost there will probably be, I would say, around a minimum 25 euros per ton. That is just for the storage part. But this is a first of a kind. So by scaling up and by, you know, having it closer to the source, the cost will be lower, just like it is in Iceland. The cost associated with Director Cap from kind of where we can get to, we're well on the target of getting below $100 a ton of CO2 captured from the air. But pulling CO2 out of the air, it's like, pardon my part of the way I'm speaking, but so what, who cares? That's not useful. CO2 has to be a liquid or a high grade liquid or a supercritical fluid. So we have to integrate systems in order to get the CO2 to a saleable form or to an injectable form. And that requires putting more systems together and that requires additional energy costs and additional capital costs. So when you break down what the overall costs of atmospheric CO2 removal via direct air capture is, today there are some companies that have published results of where there are at. And it typically ranges in the $600 to $800 per ton range. But this cost is heavily dependent upon the cost of energy. So as we scale up manufacturing and cost down the technology, we see no way what a capital cost contribution of the technology over a 10 or 20 year amortized project lifecycle can't be in the 20 to 30 to $40 per ton range. And then if you take the energy costs associated with moving, we have to move 3,000 tons of air for every one ton of CO2 that can recapture. So if you take the energy costs required to do that and to convert the CO2 into a saleable product, we can estimate that that's about 1,000 kilowatts per ton of CO2. So at 10 cents per kilowatt hour, that's 100 bucks. So we are well within the range, even at market priced power that's retail priced power to be in the $100 a ton range over time. But that assumes that we take good progression along the learning curve. And so the question becomes, how do we iterate on that as rapidly as possible? But I see no technological reason why we can't achieve $100 a ton direct air capture within the next five or 10 years. We take that as a promise. And I believe with this, yes, Matt, it's on stage. So I think we'll close the panel because it's time for lunch. We thank you for your attention and I thank all the panelists. And Sam, thank you for having made the time very early. London time to be with us in Visio. And thanks again and have a nice lunch.