New Data: Who can Pay For Carbon Removal?
Those who can can afford to pay the full cost of their emissions should, but all companies can afford to cover the last 10%.
Today we publish an update of the Ambition gap paper I wrote with Carbon Gap last year, with new data.
Companies with low emission have the greatest profits per tonne they emit and the largest capacity to pay the full cost of their emissions. When you earn 100,000 USD per tonne you emit, a 200 USD carbon fee is very affordable. If you can afford to pay the cost of your emissions you should.
However, our analysis shows that ALL sectors could afford to remove the last 10% of their Scope 1-3 emissions with permanent carbon removal. AND, contributions from high emitters could generate the MOST money in absolute terms, even if they only pay very little per tonne they emit, or buy very few tonnes as a share of their emissions.
Big emitters should also start supporting CDR and other external climate solutions, but they will be very far away from paying the full cost of their emissions, and thats ok since we need them to spend most their money internally on reductions.
The post has interactive graphs to let you explore the profit per tonne and emissions of companies, see what different carbon prices would mean for different sectors as a share of their profits. We will make the whole dataset available shortly.
I presented the update as a preview at an IETA seminar on Saturday 2 Dec at COP. It can be found here:
Read the full post and find the original 2022 paper here: