Yep, I am in. Subsidies in any shape or form for the fossil fuel industry are a travesty and should be stopped right now. All that money could and should go to renewables and to some extent to CDR.
So, what do you suggest next?

Tina, I can understand your concern, I really can. But if your work is being misused and twisted for the politicized purpose of keeping a declining fossil industry in business at taxpayers’ expense, you can’t expect groups not to push back.
Maybe the first thing place for genuine CCS/CDR advocates and other climate hawks to find common ground is on a joint statement decrying the fossil industry’s outsized influence, and for bonus points, committing not to endorse fossil lobbying for CCS subsidies or accept the proceeds of that effort. With the industry making record profits now, and taking in $2.8 billion per day over the last 50 years, they can and should be paying their own way. If politicians consistently heard that from CCS/CDR developers, it would carry a lot of weight…and add credibility to the research effort.
Are you in?

True, the fossil fuel industry trying to greenwash with the goal to continue business as usual is a big problem. But it is one most of us who think about these things daily are aware of. Rejecting a whole host of promising solutions to combat climate change because a group well-known for disinformation is trying to use them for their own purpose is not the right approach. We should work together to make sure they don’t succeed with their efforts rather than reject the solutions.
Where we are now is that there is a huge split between the green CDR opponents and proponents when we should be natural allies. In fact, we agree on pretty much everything else (climate change exists, it’s man-made, we need to decarbonize, we need to restore our climate, there is too much CO2, whatever we do needs to be done equitably and fairly, to name just the most obvious). Having orgs like CIEL vilify CDR and CDR proponents is not helping, the task is enormous and overwhelming as it is, we don’t need the infighting.

Thanks, Tina. Yes, serious CDR proponents are diligent and careful to be clear that we need both, and deep decarbonization first. My sense is that the conversation gets a lot more polarized when we see fossil companies seizing on a combination of CCS, CDR, and carbon offsets as a pretext to continue increasing oil and gas production into the indefinite future, a proposition that looks easy politically but makes no sense technically. It’s easy to understand the frustration when honest practitioners’ work is routinely rolled over into greenwash.

No serious proponent of CDR views it as a replacement for deep decarbonization as fast as possible. CDR is never meant to replace phasing out fossil fuels. Its purpose is to offset emissions that are hard to get rid of, such as in steel making or agriculture (fertilizers) and to remove excess CO2 that has already accumulated in the atmosphere. We are now at 420 ppm of CO2, we need to get down to at least 350 ppm, this is not possible without removal as CO2 doesn’t simply disappear.

The false dichotomy CDR opponents create is regrettable. We all want the same thing, less CO2 in the air causing less havoc on our climate. We need to be creative and innovative and use all the tools at our disposal including developing those that are not yet ready for prime time. A more nuanced discussion is sorely needed and biased articles like this just deepen the rift instead of helping us build a bridge for the benefit of our planet.