Inside the UK’s Answer to the GGR Review - with James Screen

In this episode of The Carbon Removal Scoop, Eve Tamme and Sebastian Manhart sit down with James Screen, who until recently led the team designing carbon removal policy at the UK's Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. A year after the Scoop covered Alan Whitehead's independent review of greenhouse gas removals, James explains what the government's response actually is: not a grand strategy, but a staging post that sets out the UK's direction of travel and leaves the hardest questions for the Carbon Budget 7 delivery plan.

James is candid in sharing his personal views about where the response parts ways with the review. He explains why there is little political appetite to reopen what net zero means by adopting geological net zero, the outlook on woodland in the UK ETS, and reads the new "as soon as practicable" timeline for removals in the UK ETS against the backdrop of possible UK and EU ETS linking.

The conversation then turns to the GGR business models. James walks through how carbon contracts for difference sit on top of the network support model in clusters like Liverpool Bay, why he thinks the model can work for both voluntary and ETS sales, and why taxpayer subsidy cannot be the enduring answer. Sebastian and Eve also find themselves on opposite sides of whether the UK and Europe are making too narrow a bet on BioCCS and DAC.

They close on the reshuffle that followed the response, with James explaining why he sees continuity rather than radical change, and why the story of solar and offshore wind gives him real cause for optimism.

LINKS:

• Eve Tamme: LinkedIn and Website
• Sebastian Manhart: LinkedIn and Website
• James Screen: LinkedIn
• Independent review on greenhouse gas removals: government response
• Independent Review of Greenhouse Gas Removals by Alan Whitehead

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