A new group, backed by big names in the climate world, just launched to ensure carbon removal policies verifiably keep CO2 stashed away.

Why it matters: Reliable tallying of what's sucked from the atmosphere — and whether it's truly staying out — is crucial for becoming a real weapon against global warming.

Driving the news: Enter the Carbon Removal Standards Initiative (CRSI), which launched today.

• The nonprofit's mission is to help governments and NGOs craft science-based standards, with an emphasis on rigorous quantification.
• The founder and executive director is Anu Khan, former head of science and innovation at the group Carbon180.
• The Bill Gates-founded Breakthrough Energy and the Grantham Foundation are among the six initial funders.

How it works: CRSI aims to inform policies in the U.S. and beyond — without financial conflicts that come alongside technical assistance from industry.

• "Government regulators have wide portfolios and can't be expected to know the technical aspects of the entire carbon removal ecosystem right away," Khan tells Axios.
• Take, for instance, CRSI efforts on "jurisdiction-level monitoring " of enhanced weathering tech. It's designed to fit into UN work on methodologies and use of carbon credits, she said via email.

Other program areas include a new database on quantification tools and resources and studying how standards development has worked in other industries.

Catch up quick: There's a thirst for this. An early 2023 open letter calling for an independent body drew support from startups, scientists, venture capitalists and others.

• "The carbon removal market today is still in its infancy, with investors taking on the burden of assessing quality in the absence of robust standards," Carbon Direct chief science officer Matthew Potts wrote last year.

The bottom line: While billions of dollars in public and private capital are flowing into removal, strong transparency is needed to enable public trust and ultimately build a gigaton-scale market, advocates say.

• Khan tells Axios that buyers, suppliers and other market participants are excited for governments to provide more clarity.

The Energy Department this morning announced $2.2 billion in grants for eight projects across 18 states to expand and upgrade power transmission.

Why it matters: The transmission and related infrastructure projects together will add roughly 13 gigawatts worth of capacity, or "roughly six and a half Hoover Dams of power," Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said.

Driving the news: The cost-sharing grants are funded under the 2021 infrastructure law.

Granholm said selections unveiled today are split between 600 miles of new lines and 400 miles of reconductoring — that is, tech that enables existing lines to carry more power.

Zoom in: Some examples of the $2.2B in cost-share grants include:

• Over $600 million for the "California Harnessing Advanced Reliable Grid Enhancing Technologies for Transmission" project, which would increase statewide electric transmission capacity as well as streamline the process for renewable energy projects to interconnect to the grid.
• Over $389 million for the "Power Up New England" project, which aims to reduce wholesale energy supply costs for New England customers and create new offshore wind interconnections in Massachusetts and Connecticut.
• $700 million for the North Plains Connector Interregional Innovation in Montana and North Dakota.

The big picture: It's part of wider DOE funding with overlapping aims — hardening grids, accommodating more renewables, and meeting growing demand from data centers and manufacturing.

• This is the second round of projects funded under the $10.5 billion Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships program, following nearly $3.5B last fall.

The bottom line: "This funding is even more important as we consider the acceleration of ... extreme weather events, which is fueled by climate change," Granholm told reporters yesterday.

⚖️ The Biden administration is appealing a federal judge's injunction against the pause on new LNG export licenses to major markets.

• Why it matters: The pause is among the most closely watched and contentious White House energy policy moves.
• Catch up quick: Yesterday's notice of appeal to the Fifth Circuit follows an early July injunction (albeit one with hazy real-world effects). Go deeper.

⚔️ Via Bloomberg, "A large vessel docked at Russia's liquefied natural gas export plant in the Arctic last week, according to satellite images, in what appears to be the first move to circumvent US sanctions against the facility."

🤝 U.S. LNG exporter Cheniere Energy and Portugal's Galp announced a 20-year deal for 500,000 metric tons annually, which would come from the planned expansion of Cheniere's Sabine Pass terminal. S&P Global has more.

HBO's finance workplace drama "Industry" is back with a third season, this time around grappling with the merits of ESG investing.

Why it matters: It's perfectly timed with the current real-world discourse on the topic, as skeptics and opponents ratchet up attacks to discredit the investment approach, which prioritizes environmental, social and governance concerns.

The big picture: The show follows a group of twentysomethings and their bosses working in London high-finance at the fictional Pierpoint & Co. investment bank.

Zoom in: This season brings a slew of new characters from the controversial — but very buzzy — world of green energy and ESG-based investing.

• "We wanted to bring that lens to something that in some respects could be considered quite altruistic, but in other respects could be motivated totally by avarice and by people's own self-advancement," show co-creator Mickey Down tells Axios.

What's next: Season 3 premieres on Aug. 11 on HBO.

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The Financial Times has a great look at the International Energy Agency's growing focus on low-carbon transition under boss Fatih Birol — and criticism in tow.

The intrigue: "[F]ormer officials in Donald Trump's administration say Trump will try to oust Birol if he is reelected," the FT reports.