Axios House at COP28: Carbon Management’s Role in Addressing Climate Change

At a reception for the final day of Axios House in Dubai for COP28, industry and government leaders came together to discuss the state of play for carbon management and the ways it could be implemented to help address climate change.

On Dec. 6, Axios senior climate reporter Andrew Freedman and 1 big thing host/editor Niala Boodhoo hosted thought-provoking conversations with:

• Lisa Hurlston-McKenzie, senior policy officer (environment & resiliency), Ministry of Sustainability and Climate Resiliency, Cayman Islands Government
• Claude Letourneau, CEO, Svante
• Melanie Nakagawa, chief sustainability officer, Microsoft

Hurlston-McKenzie shared insight into Cayman Islands' next generation's outlook on the climate crisis effect on the small island:

• "We're looking at the future for our next generation…Many of them here and at home suffering major eco anxiety and climate anxiety for what this really means for the future of them to remain in their homeland. To bring up their own children in the place that you know, that they know and love. And does it mean that we are looking at…being climate migrants or climate refugees ourselves…Vulnerability is a vulnerability that when you're sitting at 7.5ft on average above sea level."

Letourneau on the skepticism carbon capture receives from others outside of the industry:

• "Most people call this the green energy transition. I believe it's the green industrial transition. We need to start managing our waste. We've been throwing the CO2 as a byproduct of industrial activity at no cost. Now we're seeing the effect of it and we need to manage our ways. It's similar to the waste management industry."

Nakagawa highlighted how AI is playing a role in carbon management:

• "...AI is a really important accelerator to sustainability progress…AI has some pretty amazing superpowers. It can take really complex, multiple sources of information and simplify it. It can also accelerate the discovery of new materials, which is particularly relevant to the carbon removal space. And it also has the opportunity to create some game changing new breakthroughs as well."

Sponsored content:

Clear Path CEO Rich Powell shared how carbon management technology is a need:

• "...carbon management is probably the most bipartisan place in the U.S. climate policy conversation right now. Across the Energy Act of 2020, and the bipartisan infrastructure law and even the Inflation Reduction Act, probably no technology received more investment than this…The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and others have found that this is the need to have technology. So we need this to work at scale and at a reasonable cost if we've got any hope of stabilizing global temperatures…"

Thank you to Clear Path for sponsoring this event.