Ahead of our flagship Edition 3 report, State of CDR published a discussion paper on international governance for CDR. In it, we seek to understand what key governance gaps persist and the role of international cooperation and new institutions in addressing them.
We assess the institutional landscape for actors in the broader climate/decarbonization governance space (e.g., IEA, IRENA, CEM) to understand what motivated the inception of these well-established groups and how they evolved over time. We apply those learnings to the CDR space and conduct an independent and systematic assessment of initiatives within the CDR landscape that play a role in its governance (e.g., MI-CDR, GONE, G-ZERO). We distill eight key strategies that new initiatives or institutions can leverage toward addressing gaps and offer one possible phased approach for developing a new institution to supply more robust, coordinated governance for the field, across 6 ‘governance functions’.
In Milan, I will present findings from this report. One key finding from our report: governance for CDR remains fragmented and nascent. Also, activities to coordinate and harmonize rules and standards and create mechanisms for transparency and accountability emerged as key needs, among others.
I hope this paper and presentation will spark new insights, generate fruitful discussion, and cause CDR experts to consider not only the role of governance and international collaboration in helping to scale CDR but what kinds of new or expanded institutions might be needed to deliver it.