Senator Dave Cortese (D-Silicon Valley) has introduced SB 1297 to continue his innovative work on climate restoration.
Cortese is working with stakeholders from environmental justice groups, labor, and industry to craft a plan for California to not only adapt to, but to reverse climate change.
If you’ve been following the carbon dioxide removal (CDR) industry for the last few years, you’re probably blown away by the progress — just like us! CDR has become much more widely known, and the number of companies working in the space has skyrocketed. Competitions like XPRIZE’s Carbon Removal Prize are helping spur even more innovation, and funding from corporations has increased beyond what anyone could have predicted. It’s exciting to see and sometimes overwhelming to keep up with.
Rewind to 2019, when F4CR hosted the First Annual Global Climate Restoration Forum at UN headquarters in New York City. In conjunction with that event, we launched a white paper, describing the goal of climate restoration and how we envisioned different CDR solutions as contributing to its success. The paper was exceedingly helpful in getting members of the growing climate restoration movement up to speed. After reading the paper, they understood our perspective as an organization and had an overview of what looked, at the time, like the most promising solutions.
Given the rapid growth of the CDR sector, though, that paper couldn’t serve our needs forever. While we put out several updates over the years, eventually, too much had changed. Solutions estimated to have only a modest potential to scale prior to 2019 started looking far more promising. Solutions that seemed hard to finance in 2019 became viable thanks to corporate support (including Stripe and Microsoft). And, solutions that would require policy support to be widely adopted started looking possible as more policy makers began to understand the need for CDR.
We decided to rewrite our white paper, with all of these changes in mind. Now, we’re excited to present it to you, our community. We hope that it will provide you with a clearer understanding of the work of climate restoration, the opportunity that the public sector can play, and how individuals can contribute. We also hope you’ll spend some time looking through the sources listed in the footnotes to more deeply explore any you find intriguing — there’s a lot to delve into!
If you want more in-depth information about any of the CDR solutions mentioned in the paper or in the Appendix tables, make sure you’re subscribed to our newsletter. Throughout 2022 we’ll be releasing our Solution Series, highlighting one type of CDR solution per month. Follow along throughout the year and you’ll be a pro by 2023!
Most of all, let us know what you think. Drop us a line in the comments here. We love hearing from our community.
— Dr. Erica Dodds, Chief Operating Officer
There’s nothing like a new year, starting with a clean slate, to leave me feeling energized and inspired. I ended 2021 reflecting on all the progress we’ve seen in the climate restoration space. I’m starting 2022 ready to roll up my sleeves and join with our growing community to get to work (although I’ll be doing a different kind of work first, welcoming my first child — our newest climate restorer — into the world).
People ask us frequently, “What can I do? How can I get involved?” I think there’s often an implicit hope that the answer is simple: Buy organic produce, ride your bike, recycle your containers. Unfortunately, when the scale of the challenge is as big as climate restoration — removing a trillion tons of legacy CO2 from our atmosphere to make our planet livable for future generations — small individual actions just won’t get us there. It will take a few things for climate restoration to succeed:
Fortunately, solutions are already being developed (and indeed, implemented and scaled) to rapidly increase our capacity to remove legacy CO2 from the atmosphere, store it durably, and restore our climate. If you’re interested in diving in more deeply to some of the solutions out there, make sure you’re subscribed to our newsletter so you can get updates about our Solution Series. The series will launch later this year and will feature one type of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) solution per month in detail.
The problem with solutions is that, without the conditions they need to succeed, they’re just really good ideas. So it’s critical to both encourage the innovation needed to develop highly scalable solutions while developing the “enabling environment” that those solutions need to succeed (e.g., financing models, policy mechanisms, and public support).
The fact that you’re reading this blog post means that you are more educated than the average person regarding climate change. As it stands, most people don’t realize that climate change won’t be solved when we reach net-zero emissions. They don’t know that CO2 lingers in our atmosphere for hundreds to thousands of years if left unchecked. They don’t know that CDR solutions exist or that the CDR industry is growing rapidly. And they certainly don’t know that they can demand a restored climate instead of one that leaves the survival of humanity in question.
Broadening the conversation around climate restoration is critical because paradigm shifts don’t happen without widespread awareness and mobilization. If we want to go beyond net-zero, we need a major public awareness campaign in 2022. F4CR has several initiatives that will contribute to enhancing public awareness, from our forthcoming Solution Series to the work of our Youth Leaders and Local Chapter members.
Like paradigm shifts, economic shifts don’t happen in a vacuum. Robust policy support can substantially accelerate the transition to a net-zero carbon economy and beyond. Policymakers can incentivize the use of low-carbon and carbon-negative building materials, the adoption of land management techniques that rebuild natural carbon sinks, and the research and development of innovative new CDR solutions. Policy can also be used to require the direct procurement of carbon removal by governments, which can help move CDR solutions down the cost curve more quickly, enabling them to scale up faster and more economically. F4CR’s Local Chapters focus on working with local and state-level elected officials to enact these types of policies that accelerate the scale-up of climate restoration solutions.
I invite you to take the leap in 2022 and get involved in climate restoration. Perhaps the biggest impact you can have is by joining our Local Chapter program. If you’d like to learn more, fill out this quick survey or email Myra Khan, our Chapter Empowerment Coordinator. If volunteering isn’t right for you at this time, consider becoming a monthly donor to help sustain our momentum. Let’s make 2022 the year of climate restoration!
—Terri Pugh, Chapter Empowerment Coordinator
“I hope you’ll become part of the solution,” Al Gore told the crowd near the end of the more than hour-long talk. “I want to recruit you … We can do this. People doubt we have the political will. Just remember that political will is itself a renewable resource. Go out and renew it.” (YaleNews)
If you are looking for a meaningful resolution this New Year’s season, consider creating the political will to implement solutions to restore the climate. If that sounds impossible to you, don’t worry! The Foundation for Climate Restoration (F4CR) provides training to guide you each step of the way.
Political will is the power behind any political change. Change happens When people speak up and ask for what they really want from their government. Without input, the government follows old trajectories that might not match the latest information available or even the present-day needs of the people.
Climate change becomes a more pressing problem with every passing day. The pressure is mounting on policymakers to address climate change as coastlines suffer, woodlands burn, and temperature shifts cause abnormal weather extremes. According to a recent White House report, “Extreme weather has cost Americans an additional $600 billion in physical and economic damages over the past five years alone.” We cannot afford to ignore this situation any longer from an economic perspective — or any perspective.
We need to move rapidly to jump-start the carbon removal industry as quickly as possible. This, in concert with emission reduction efforts, is critical to restoring a safe and healthy climate, but it will require political will and engagement from all levels of government.
Education and advocacy are critical to restoring our climate. That’s why F4CR is training teams of people to become experts on policy solutions. Together, we can educate communities and elected officials about these solutions, some of which are already in use.
As Mike Robinson of the University of Washington says, “In order to have any realistic hope of sticking to 1.5 degrees of warming, we need carbon dioxide removal to become a new industry as big as today’s oil and gas industry within 10–20 years. Just think about that — an industry in its infancy today needs to grow in a decade into an industry that employs millions of people worldwide. The territories that lead the way in supporting the development of this new industry will be the territories that reap the biggest economic reward!”
Elected officials are interested in these industries, and our Local Chapter volunteers are helping to educate them. In many cases, these solutions can attract jobs and improve economies; especially if the area is receptive to these new technologies. This is a nonpartisan effort — all sides have a vested interest in long-term job creation.
In 2021, F4CR formally launched its local chapter program. We started with five pilot chapters and have quickly quadrupled, with coverage now spanning four continents. Our local chapters train people to understand policies that restore the climate, provide recommendations for meeting with officials, and write letters-to-the-editor and op-eds. Our teams meet and strategize with one another and through fellowship, we keep our teammates moving forward on the frontlines to help officials understand natural and technological solutions.
The key to our program’s success is robust training and community involvement for volunteers. Please fill out this quick survey or email our local chapter coordinator, Myra Khan, at myra@F4CR.org.
Starting your own local chapter is a great way to start off your new year’s resolutions! With one call you will be taking meaningful action to enable climate change solutions. Here’s to the year ahead.
-Kye Young, VP of Partnerships and Development
The holiday season is upon us and, with it, a time to reflect on the past year and our hopes for the future. Realizing our hopes for the future — a safe and healthy climate — is only possible with the continued generosity of our community.
In many ways, 2021 mirrored 2020. A global pandemic persists, political differences continue to divide, and communities worldwide are emphatically calling for increased action to reverse the devastating impacts of a changing climate.
Though these and many other issues can feel overwhelming, there is reason for hope. A growing sentiment is that a post-pandemic society must not simply return to normal, but rather we must “build back better” — that is, to look deeply at our collective challenges and to move forward, doing and being better. If there is anything positive that I take from the challenges of recent years, it is that small actions can add up to big changes, and if we commit, we can make those changes, even if they seem lofty and unattainable on the surface.
Here at the Foundation for Climate Restoration, we are surrounded by a growing community building a better world for our children, grandchildren and future generations. For us, it all starts with restoring the climate through education, advocacy and solutions.
Thanks to our generous supporters, we have grown the movement across the board. From launching our Youth Leaders for Climate Restoration program in March, to growing our local chapters community globally, the actions required to restore the climate are being mobilized. We believe that in 2022 we will have a chance to significantly impact policy and broader awareness of the urgent need to remove legacy CO2 from the atmosphere.
Any goals we accomplish will only be achieved through continued engagement by our community. As the year closes, I wanted to share various ways you might consider supporting F4CR.
Thanks to the generosity of an anonymous donor, every contribution you make to F4CR between now and 11:59 pm PT on December 31 will be matched up to $50,000. In other words, every donation will have double the impact. Please consider a donation here. You can even donate in honor of a loved one as a holiday gift.
For those that prefer old-fashioned checks, you can send your contribution to F4CR at:
Foundation for Climate Restoration
℅ Gifts Processing
952 S Springer Rd
Los Altos, CA 94024
Through 2021, supporters who itemize when filing their tax returns can benefit from an increase in the deduction limit up to 100% of a donor’s adjusted gross income (AGI) for cash gifts.
Previously, the deduction was capped at 60% of AGI. Therefore, donors who make a gift of cash will be able to deduct more this year.
Additionally, supporters who do not itemize when filing their tax returns, but make a gift to charity, will be allowed to take a special tax deduction up to $300 ($600 for couples filing jointly) to reduce their tax liability. A tax-deductible receipt will be generated when you make a contribution here.
Supporters age 70½ or older may make a gift of any amount, up to $100,000 per individual ($200,000 for couples with individual IRA accounts), from your IRA without paying income tax on the donated amount.
For supporters who have a Required Minimum Distribution, making a gift directly from your IRA to the Foundation for Climate Restoration (EIN 82–3487365) will satisfy that requirement. Note that the QCD can only be made from IRAs — not from company plans.
For those who have personalized checks for their IRA account, contact me at Kye@f4cr.org for specific information to ensure their wishes are met.
If you are interested in donating stocks/securities or similar assets that you have owned for more than one year, you are entitled to a charitable income tax deduction based on their current value. You also avoid the capital gains tax that you would have paid if you sold the stock.
Because the value of these assets may have increased significantly over time, your tax savings may be sizable. Again, please contact me at Kye@f4cr.org if you have any questions.
Thank you again for your interest and commitment in restoring the climate. Together, we can build back better and ensure that future generations thrive.
Erica Dodds, Chief Operating Officer, F4CR
Living in a world rocked by climate change is hard. It’s hard because of the increasingly frequent extreme weather events, the burden of explaining our uncertain future to kids, and, for more and more people, the general sense of existential dread and anxiety that seems to constantly loom over us.
Psychologists have even coined a new term to explain this feeling: eco-anxiety.
In 2019, I gave a workshop on climate restoration to a group of a few dozen high school students at the Youth Climate Summit in Silver Springs, MD. In the workshop, I asked the students to take a moment to close their eyes and imagine what their lives might look like in thirty years, given everything they knew about climate change. When they opened their eyes, their faces were grim. I asked one student what she had imagined, and she said, “It just doesn’t seem like I’ll have a future.” The rest of the group agreed.
This sentiment is increasingly common among young people today, but it’s not only the young who are experiencing eco-anxiety. Parents and grandparents agonize about the world that we’re leaving to our children, and those without children worry that their legacies will be dire.
One reason eco-anxiety is so widespread is that a lot of our climate dialogue to date has taken the attitude that we need to scare people into action. If only people understood how bad things were, the thinking goes, they would eagerly make the changes needed to safeguard the world as we know it. Information about climate change has featured images of starving polar bears, wildfires, people wading through flooded neighborhoods, etc. These impacts are real and they are important to understand, but they can feel so overwhelming that any individual action seems insignificant and pointless in response.
In my workshop, I proceeded to teach the students about the goal of climate restoration and a few of the carbon dioxide removal (CDR) solutions that already exist and show incredible promise. I explained that although the situation is scary, it’s not too late to fix it. The challenge now is accelerating the development and implementation of effective CDR solutions while we continue to decarbonize our global economy. It won’t be easy, but it’s certainly not impossible.
Again, I asked the students to close their eyes and imagine their future in thirty years, but this time, taking into account the possibility of climate restoration. The difference was night and day. When they opened their eyes, they looked lighter. A few shared that they imagined camping and traveling with their families. Others said they felt energized and wanted to take action.
It’s important to talk about eco-anxiety because so few people are conscious they’re experiencing it. By spreading awareness, we can help normalize the fear and help people identify ways to take action to help combat it. Learning about the possibility of a brighter future can help change our outlook in the present and can give us more energy to bring that future into being. Similarly, taking action toward a healthy climate — by donating, volunteering, lobbying Congress, or just educating ourselves — can help to lift feelings of despair and hopelessness.
Learning about and working toward climate restoration is one of the most powerful ways to combat eco-anxiety. This new paradigm for our climate provides realistic hope as well as avenues to get involved. The combination of envisioning a brighter future and taking concrete action can make a huge difference for even the most stubborn cases of eco-anxiety. Join the Climate Restoration movement to get started.
— Kye Young, VP of Partnerships and Development
The holiday season is a time for reflection. It is a time to connect with our loved ones and ponder how we can contribute to making the world a better place. At the Foundation for Climate Restoration (F4CR), we’re focusing this season on supporting the next generation of climate leaders. We are pursuing ways to increase opportunities for young people to become advocates for a future in which they feel secure.
Specifically on Giving Tuesday, we’re fundraising to support our Youth Leaders for Climate Restoration (YL4CR) program to provide scholarships and internship stipends to outstanding young people around the world. Now is a critical time for action.
From November 6–12, I had the pleasure of representing F4CR at COP26 in Glasgow, along with our CEO Rick Wayman. On the long trek back from Glasgow through London to New York, I had a lot of time to contemplate the climate restoration movement and how our message penetrated the walls of the world’s largest climate conference.
I have two significant takeaways:
First, the idea of restoring the climate by removing significant amounts of legacy carbon from the atmosphere is no longer a radical concept. In conversations with UN member state representatives, investors, multinational corporations, philanthropies, start-ups and academic institutions, I found that they all applaud our work and support our effort to mobilize further action to restore the climate. Beyond hearty support, the US Department of Energy’s Carbon Negative Earthshots Initiative showed tangible evidence of policy support for climate restoration.
Second, the world’s youth are not satisfied with the progress made at COP26. The commitments made by member states are not happening at the urgent pace that global youth advocates are demanding. The message was clear. Business as usual (or nominal tweaks to it) is not nearly good enough.
We have heeded the youth’s call to engage deeper and to ramp up action; early this year, we launched the Youth Leaders 4 Climate Restoration (YL4CR) program. The youth-led train-the-trainer program provides opportunities for participants (ages 13–24) to receive quality climate restoration training, practice speaking on large platforms, and get leadership experience through teaching their peers. In the program’s short existence, we have had over 540 applicants and participants from 36 countries and counting.
While there are no costs associated with participation in the program, we recognize that some highly motivated participants can make bigger and longer-term impacts with the help of a financial award. Our youth leaders are exceptionally diverse, coming from all six inhabited continents and varied educational and socioeconomic backgrounds. They are united by their commitment to our planet’s health.
As program participants prepare themselves for professional careers, many need support in pursuing avenues that will allow them to continue contributing to climate restoration. Whether it is tuition assistance, support while they complete an internship or research project, or funding to launch a community organizing project, F4CR wants to do whatever we can to support them in building careers that ensure humanity thrives.
This is why we are focusing our Giving Tuesday campaign on supporting YL4CR. Giving Tuesday is an annual day of giving that unleashes the power of people and organizations to transform their communities and the world. In a season of consumption, it is a day reserved for supporting charity organizations making a difference.
This year it falls on Tuesday, November 30. Donations to this campaign will provide financial support for awards or internship stipends for our youth program participants in their climate restoration pursuits. Furthermore, every donation we receive will be matched up to $50,000, thanks to the generosity of an anonymous donor. It is a tremendous opportunity and we need your support. Please share this opportunity with your networks. We will be sharing tools and resources to help you get the word out to those in your circles. Know that the world’s youth want a stronger voice in the climate fight and we are providing opportunities for them to leverage their passions to restore the climate.
Please consider supporting our Giving Tuesday initiative in any way you can and help us empower the next generation of climate leaders.
Here’s to our youth.
–Rick Wayman, CEO, Foundation for Climate Restoration
The official proceedings at COP26 in Glasgow have seen some minor breakthroughs on significant issues such as methane, but as Kumi Naidoo suggested at the Global Carbon Removal Partnership (GCRP) launch, by and large, the negotiations have been the diplomatic equivalent of keeping a rapidly-sinking Titanic afloat by bailing out water one bucket at a time.
While some media and activists focus on reasons for despair — after all, this is the twenty-sixth annual Conference of Parties, with precious little tangible progress to show for it — after my first two days at COP26, I remain confident that we can restore our climate by 2050.
Is this just baseless idealism from the new guy? (I started with F4CR only a few weeks ago — see my first blog post). I don’t think so, and here’s why.
Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) has emerged as a significant pathway to restore the climate, unlike in years past. There is noticeable momentum to dealing with legacy carbon in the atmosphere TODAY and the industry’s growth is noticeable. The most significant example perhaps was the launch of the Global Carbon Removal Partnership launched at a side event in the official “Blue Zone” at COP26. F4CR co-founded the Global Carbon Removal Task Force at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2020, and I am so pleased to see it launch as a standalone entity with an influential multi-stakeholder participation and, I believe, great potential to succeed.
The partnership is led by Dr. Sanjeev Khagram, Dean of the Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University, and will be co-headquartered in Nairobi and Los Angeles. Both the Kenyan government and the City of Los Angeles have been important proponents of CDR. I am proud to see them setting a strong example for other local and national governments around the world.The private sector is also well-represented in the Partnership, with companies working on innovative technological and nature-based CDR solutions collaborating toward a common goal.
The Bellona Foundation hosted another CDR event in the Blue Zone on Monday.The panelists there posited (and I agree) that there is no time to wait. Solutions must be scaled up now, and improvements can be made along the way where necessary. The sheer scale of legacy CO2 that needs to be removed from the atmosphere demands a scale-up of CDR processes of, in the estimation of Christoph Beuttler, Head of Climate Policy at Climeworks, 60–80% per year at a minimum.
This CDR scale-up can be — and is being — advanced by diverse stakeholder groups. Cities are leading from the local level, demonstrating the viability of CDR and policy solutions that can then be scaled and replicated at the national and international levels. The private sector is raising the bar on climate commitments, pushing past “carbon-neutral by 2050” goals and providing the early-stage capital needed to scale the CDR sector. Microsoft was the first company to pledge to become carbon-negative by 2030, and a growing cadre of major corporations is following suit. Individuals are minimizing their own carbon footprints, demanding responsible climate practices from brands, and calling for more ambitious commitments from their government representatives.
Nations, corporations, and individuals absolutely must do everything in their power to eliminate CO2 emissions, and that remains the central message of this year’s COP. But even if we hit the “net-zero” emissions goal today, we would still experience the astounding effects of climate chaos for decades to come due to the trillion tons of legacy CO2 that remain in the atmosphere. UNFCCC recognizes this reality and a small but increasing number of people are recognizing that there is no reason to delay action.
COP26 will likely wrap up at the end of this week with feeble (and at times misleadingly optimistic) declarations from some governments and lingering concerns about equity and access in the official COP process. I am heartened by the power of youth groups, the private sector, and civil society demanding seats at the table. And the fact that cities, countries, and companies are coming together to address the need for carbon dioxide removal allows me to leave Glasgow on Friday evening feeling confident about the future, though much more work remains to be done!
It was an extraordinary honor to be selected last month as the new CEO of the Foundation for Climate Restoration. Before taking the job, I talked extensively with my 12-year-old daughter Lulu about the organization and what it stands for. She didn’t think twice about endorsing climate restoration; to her, it obviously needs to be done, and with great urgency. What motivates me personally about F4CR’s mission is that, when we are successful, we will have restored the climate to pre-industrial levels of CO2 before the time Lulu is the age I am today.
Before joining F4CR, I spent roughly 15 years working for the elimination of nuclear weapons on the national and international level, so I am comfortable working on seemingly impossible issues at the highest levels.
I was part of the core civil society team at the United Nations that negotiated the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in 2017, an achievement for which our campaign received the Nobel Peace Prize that year. Our success in achieving this treaty was the result of short-, medium-, and long-term strategies to engage activists, researchers, frontline communities, governments, and many more stakeholders. At all times, we kept the needs and voices of the victims of nuclear weapons testing and use at the forefront of our work. A specific provision in the treaty that I’m particularly proud of is one which calls on countries to provide assistance to victims of nuclear weapons and to restore the environment of places damaged by nuclear weapons production or use.
From 2014–17, I led the civil society effort to support the Republic of the Marshall Islands in its lawsuits against the nine nuclear-armed nations at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, and separately against the United States in US Federal Court. I built an international coalition of over 100 groups to serve as allies and megaphones in the Marshall Islands’ courageous effort, and I provided logistical and organizational support to the team of pro bono international lawyers arguing the cases in The Hague. Throughout this process, I had the privilege of working side by side with Tony de Brum, who was the Foreign Minister of the Marshall Islands. His unshakeable dedication to both peace and climate action — and his effective pursuit of both goals — continues to fuel my hope for the future.
What I’ve learned from my cumulative experience in changing the norms and laws deeply entrenched in systems is that, more than anything, meaningful results are indeed achievable. But success cannot and will not happen without innovation, leadership, and a people-centered approach. This is why I’m so inspired by F4CR’s thought leadership and partnerships with some of the best thinkers and doers who are actively making change.
I have a great deal of hope that we will succeed in our mission. This is not some kind of pie-in-the-sky hope. This is realistic hope. It is based on the fact that technologies already exist that can help us restore the climate, and more are on their way. The fact that we have people of all ages, from many backgrounds and parts of the world, already stepping up to lead, and who are demanding that government officials follow their initiative, is exciting. In just a few weeks with F4CR, I can see that our movement’s leadership is in very good hands, from youth to scientists to business leaders and so many others.
It is no longer acceptable to ignore the climate crisis or pretend that we’ll just figure it out later. The innovations are here, and the processes are improving every day. We can, must, and will act decisively as individuals and as a society to permanently solve this crisis. I’m privileged to be on this journey with you all.
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Rick Wayman is CEO of the Foundation for Climate Restoration. You can read his full bio here.