What we do
Carbon Gap is the leading independent not-for-profit focused exclusively on carbon dioxide removal (CDR) policy in Europe. We are entirely philanthropically funded allowing us to deliver impact on behalf of the planet
With a team based across Europe, we bring together a unique combination of technical CDR expertise, deep political connections, advocacy tradecraft, and strong policy design capabilities.
We effect change by working closely with key policymakers as trusted advisors, building CDR support amongst elected politicians, and sharing intelligence with the CDR ecosystem via action-oriented tools and reports.
Carbon Gap believes in developing climate policies that deliver positive impact for the planet while incentivising European innovation and industry through a robust carbon removal sector.
Our mission
Our mission is to shape and enable policies that maximise Europe’s contribution to the rapid and responsible global scale-up of CDR.
who we are
We are expert policy and scientific advisors
Why carbon removals
Emissions from human activity have created dangerous levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) in our atmosphere. This excess CO2 is causing global temperatures to rise, threatening ecosystems, biodiversity, human health, and economic prosperity.
To curb global temperature rise, we need to simultaneously rapidly reduce emissions and actively remove residual and historical emissions from the atmosphere with CDR.
CDR is the process that allows us to pull CO2 out of the atmosphere and store it safely, making it the only solution capable of achieving net-negative emissions.
Why Europe, why now?
Every potential pathway for meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement depends on deploying CDR at a massive scale. Best estimates predict we will need to remove 8-10 Gigatonnes per year by 2050. This volume is nearly equivalent to the emissions from today’s global oil and gas trade combined.
Only government policy can unlock sufficient demand for CDR to reach this scale. Robust policy needs to:
Europe is where this policy-driven demand currently comes from. The EU is home to more than 90% of the world’s carbon compliance markets. It has the fiscal capacity to invest in RD&I, the political appetite for robust climate policy, and the diplomatic weight to champion CDR best practice on the world stage.
- Create a long-term market and confidence in that market.
- Unlock funding for research, develop and innovation (RD&I).
- Establish necessary guardrails to ensure credibility and integrity.
Now is the time to integrate climate action and technologies with industrial competitiveness. Scaling up the CDR sector represents a significant economic growth opportunity as part of the larger structural transition to a clean economy.
By 2050, it could become a €220 billion annual market, creating an estimated 670,000 high-quality jobs while driving innovation across key sectors like chemicals, hydrogen, and carbon management. Retaining these hard-to-abate industries is vital for preserving European strategic independence, securing green supply chains, and retaining skilled jobs.
How we work
Directly engaging with key policymakers across Europe, setting the agenda, designing and crafting policies alongside them, and securing support for CDR in line with the latest science.
Directly engaging with key EU- and country-level politicians to secure higher-level support for CDR and ensure buy-in when it comes time to approving the policies we have helped shape.
Providing ecosystem intelligence through the delivery of tools, reports and resources that unpick stalled debates and enable policy change that is rooted in expertise.
Track record
Carbon Gap launched at COP26 in 2021. In our short history, we have established a clear track record of achieving CDR policy progress in Europe including:
- Setting the EU agenda: Our 2024 call for an EU CDR Strategy set the agenda for policy progress, presenting 18 clear, actionable recommendations. More than two-thirds of these have already seen tangible advancement.
- Building ambition among policymakers: We helped to firmly place the integration of CDR into the EU and UK Emissions Trading Systems on the agenda and put forward the initial proposal for an EU-level CDR purchasing scheme (now set to become an EU Commission scheme).
- Influencing EU-level regulation: We provided technical expertise to the development of the EU Carbon Removal Certification Framework (CRCF) Regulation, pushing for stronger integrity criteria, permanence safeguards, and transparent measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) rules.
- Driving national adoption of CDR strategies: We advise multiple countries on integrating CDR into national climate plans – with clear signs of progress in Denmark, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK.
- Distilling CDR knowledge: Our Policy Tracker enables stakeholders to better understand CDR policies, compare progress across cities, regions, and countries, discover relevant CDR funding opportunities and identify under-explored topics via our research gaps database.
- Advancing high-quality research & evidence: We undertake our own research to develop independent thought-leadership pieces on CDR policy topics, including compliance options to drive demand, the need for separate CDR targets, and the economic opportunities for early-acting countries.