Transforming the entire economy to get to net-zero emissions, something that scientists say is necessary to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, will require massive and complicated transformations of nearly every aspect of society. But if you want to act on climate change now as an individual—and you’re already doing the main work of pressuring the government and companies to make systemic changes—it’s possible to subscribe to suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.
The subscription is available on one of several new platforms that sell the service of carbon removal. Here are three examples of new platforms that help quickly connect consumers with negative emissions.
Climeworks: At a power plant in Iceland, a direct air capture machine pulls CO2 from the ambient air outside, and the CO2 binds to the company’s filter. When the filter is heated, it’s released into the system and bound to water that can be pumped underground, where it reacts with the bedrock and is permanently stored. In an online shop, customers can pay for a monthly subscription to the service.
Pachama: It hasn’t always been easy to track whether or not forest restoration projects are actually working as they claim to be. Pachama, a startup that recently participated in Y Combinator’s tech accelerator, uses satellite images, LIDAR, and deep learning algorithms to accurately track the claims of forest projects that capture carbon. In the company’s new marketplace, it’s possible to buy and sell carbon credits from those projects.
Nori: Soil stores an enormous amount of carbon, and if farmers made changes in how they manage soil around the world through practices known as “regenerative agriculture”, it could potentially capture as much as a trillion tons of carbon from the atmosphere. That’s why Nori, a startup that recently launched a new marketplace selling offsets, is working with farmers to carefully monitor how much carbon they’re capturing in soil. The company is selling a limited amount of credits as it launches on a single farm, but it will be adding more farms to the platform in the coming months.
