Averting climate disaster is the most important challenge of our generation.
Carbon markets—once considered a critical component in the fight against climate change—have struggled to gain the trust of experts and remain expensive and error-prone, despite many valiant attempts to improve.
In parallel, the new and rapidly growing market for carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is trying to do things differently. CDR gives society an opportunity to build a new kind of carbon market: one where actions are verifiably additional and durable.
The growth of CDR is not optional, per scientific consensus. While the world is currently only durably removing a few kilotonnes of carbon annually, the industry needs to grow to at least 3.8 gigatonnes per year by 2050—and potentially to much larger—to limit global temperature increases to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.
Isometric exists to ensure CDR continues to scale fast, while ensuring the growth is responsible. We are a team of experts building two products to solve this problem:
- First, our Science Platform. This was created to help CDR scale fast. It’s a space for the scientific community to collaborate and accelerate alignment on high quality standards. Suppliers can host and visualize their early processes, removal data and protocols in a clear and consistent way. The Science Platform launches this summer.
- Second, our Registry. This was created to ensure CDR scales responsibly. We publish verified removal records in a manner that is scientifically rigorous, transparent, collaborative and incentive-aligned. The registry launches in late 2023.
CDR is at an inflection point. Sophisticated buyers are mobilized and emerging at pace; the world’s best scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs are inventing new ways of removing carbon from the atmosphere; regulators are scrambling to keep up; financiers and insurers are looking to back winners; and the academic community is ready to commit to this cause.
There is work to be done in supporting all the actors in the CDR ecosystem with robust infrastructure to support global scale.
CDR is on course to become the next $1 trillion industry. But only if it’s grounded in trust.
Isometric’s job is to provide that trust.
We can’t think of anything more important or urgent than our mission.
The world can’t wait.
Cover image originally taken by NASA and restored by Toby Ord
