| The Trump administration’s rollback on climate and clean energy policies will increase carbon-dioxide emissions by billions of tons, raising global temperatures and making it harder for the world to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. The higher emissions stay, the more the world will need to rely on a plan B: direct removal of CO2 from the air. Unfortunately, the Trump administration’s cuts are threatening that sector, too. There are now some 800 carbon-removal startups funded by venture capitalists and the voluntary offset purchases of major corporations. But they can only scale if they have government backing, which is something the US was ready to provide under Joe Biden. The future of one of those carbon-removal technologies, called direct air capture (DAC), is now in limbo. Earlier this week, the White House canceled $3.7 billion in clean energy projects, and has proposed cutting billions more. Trump’s actions were one of the reasons Climeworks, one of the first DAC startups founded in 2009, cut 22% of its staff recently. “I definitely expect quite a few direct air capture companies to fold this year and next year,” said Robert Hoglund, co-founder of carbon removal clearinghouse CDR.fyi. “In the long run, maybe there will be five or so with the best technologies.” DAC relies on passing air over some chemicals that can selectively capture carbon dioxide. But because CO2 exists in very low concentration — about 400 parts per million, or 0.04% — the process takes a lot of energy and thus is expensive. Climeworks charges consumers more than $1,000 per ton. For comparison, Europe’s regulated carbon price is about €70 ($80) per ton. Given those costs, DAC technology was always seen as a tough sell by climate advocates. Still, many held out hope that scaling up the technology could lower the price tag, just as it did for solar or batteries. Now Trump’s policies are putting a question mark on how much deployment could even happen in the next few years. DAC isn’t the only carbon-removal technology. The sector’s ideas range from fertilizing oceans to capture more CO2, to burying unburned biomass underground where it can’t rot. The more politicians pull back on clean energy, the more there will be a future need for carbon removal. In theory, it’s an insurance policy against the worst of climate change. But only if someone decides it’s worth paying the premiums starting now. — Akshat Rathi, Bloomberg Green | 