Just one week after launching the world's largest direct air capture and storage plant Orca, Climeworks united the key players of the carbon removal market on one platform for the second time: the Direct Air Capture Summit. The summit is an international conference designed for business leaders that would like to better understand direct air capture and discuss high-quality carbon removal solutions.
Two days filled with inspiration and determination
The two-day event featured a top line-up of speakers, including renowned climate scientists, carbon removal project developers as well as pioneering companies that are driving the carbon removal market. Especially the private sector plays a key role in driving forward climate solutions and the summit strongly underlined this.
Yes, there is a huge challenge ahead of us, but the summit showed that the determination to get to net-zero emissions exists among project developers, companies and individuals. This is what makes Climeworks' Direct Air Capture Summit unique: different stakeholders and solutions working together to create a better future for all.
Day 1: direct air capture deep dive
On the first day, 14th September, we kicked off the summit with our fellow direct air capture colleagues at Carbon Engineering, Global Thermostat, AirCapture, CarbonCapture, Carbyon, Heirloom, Mission Zero Technologies and Soletair Power. The direct air capture industry is truly bustling with excitement and has seen immense growth. Watch the kick-off here:
You can also jump to the individual keynotes:
Dr. Jan Wurzbacher, co-CEO, Climeworks
Amy Ruddock, VP Europe, Carbon Engineering
Nicholas Eisenberger, Senior Advisor, Global Thermostat
Q&A with Climeworks, Carbon Engineering & Global Thermostat
Matt Atwood, CEO, AirCapture
Adrian Corless, CEO, CarbonCapture
Hans de Neve, CEO, Carbyon
Shashank Samala, CEO, Heirloom
Nicholas Chadwick, CEO, Mission Zero Technologies
Petri Laakso, CEO, Soletair Power
Panel discussion with AirCapture, CarbonCapture, Carbyon, Heirloom, Mission Zero Technologies & Soletair Power
Day 2: moving carbon removal from vision to reality
On the second day, 15th September, we had the privilege to hear from climate science experts, negative emissions technology providers as well as pioneering companies. Keynotes were given by Prof. Dr. Reto Knutti, Prof. Dr. Tom Crowther, Charm Industrial CEO Peter Reinhardt, Climeworks co-CEO Christoph Gebald, Swiss Re's Mischa Repmann, Shopify's Stacy Kauk and BCG's Jens Burchardt:
Or jump to the individual presentations:
Welcome by Dr. Jan Wurzbacher, co-CEO, Climeworks
Prof. Dr. Reto Knutti, ETH Zurich
Prof. Dr. Tom Crowther, founder, Crowther Lab
Peter Reinhardt, CEO, Charm Industrial
Dr. Christoph Gebald, co-CEO, Climeworks
Q&A with Charm Industrial & Climeworks
Panel with Mischa Repmann, Swiss Re, Stacy Kauk, Shopify, & Jens Burchardt, BCG
Q&A with Mischa Repmann, Swiss Re, Stacy Kauk, Shopify, & Jens Burchardt, BCG
Closing remarks by Climeworks
Deployment-led innovation
The Direct Air Capture Summit 2021 demonstrated that carbon removal solution providers, such as direct air capture companies, are stepping up to climate science's call that carbon dioxide removal is needed to reach net-zero emissions globally. They all shared a doer-mentality, it's been an incredibly positive and forward-looking gathering. It is clear: carbon removal solutions like direct air capture can and will deliver, but this has to be accelerated by deploying them on a large scale.
The private sector has been a key driver of carbon dioxide removal development, from individuals to project developers and pioneering customers, but more increased and continuous private action as well as ambitious government support are needed to achieve climate-relevant scale-up and deployment of solutions like direct air capture.
Impressions of this year's Direct Air Capture Summit 2021
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