PACE Vice President Wil Burns published an Illuminem Voices article coauthored with Carter Smith “Advancing the carbon takeback conversation: flexibility and pilot pathways.” This article, which follows an initial article that explained what a Carbon Takeback Obligation is, describes how built-in flexibility and targeted pilot applications can foster confidence among policymakers and market actors in CTBO frameworks.
The case for a Carbon Takeback Obligation ultimately rests on a simple structural insight: geological net-zero pathways require enormous volumes of permanent carbon storage, and voluntary markets, episodic subsidies, and downstream-only carbon pricing have not produced, and are unlikely to produce, investment at the speed and scale that the science demands. A CTBO addresses that structural gap by attaching a duty of recovery to the suppliers best positioned to coordinate it.
Read the full article here.