The Forefront of Carbon Removal: Stopping Global Warming

Kamakura Ethical Lab contributes a portion of its membership fees to carbon removal research through Stripe Climate to combat global warming. This document provides an easy-to-understand explanation of "Carbon Removal," a cutting-edge initiative we support.

A New Challenge: Reducing CO₂ in the Atmosphere

To reduce carbon dioxide (CO₂), the primary cause of global warming, it's crucial not only to decarbonize by reducing CO₂ emissions but also to directly remove CO₂ already present in the atmosphere through "Carbon Removal" technologies. This can be likened to not just preventing a room from getting dirty (emission reduction) but also cleaning up existing clutter (removal).

According to a Stripe report, by the summer of 2025, nine companies have collectively achieved 21,671 tons of CO₂ removal. This represents a 121% increase compared to the previous year, indicating rapid progress in this field of technology.

"Advance Purchase Programs" Fostering New Technologies

Developing new technologies requires immense costs and time. Organizations like Stripe Climate and Frontier address this by providing development funds to companies that promise future CO₂ removal through "advance purchase programs."

This mechanism involves committing to pay in advance for a certain amount of CO₂ removal in the future, even if the product is not yet complete. This financial support enables companies with new technologies to confidently pursue research and development.

Through this program, Frontier specifically focuses on and invests in promising technologies in areas where research is still nascent.

Source :https://frontierclimate.com/writing/summer-2025-prepurchases

Two Promising Carbon Removal Technologies

Frontier is particularly focused on the following two new approaches:

1. Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement (OAE)

Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement (OAE) is a method to strengthen the ocean's capacity to absorb CO₂.

• Mechanism: Water containing specific alkaline minerals (such as quicklime produced by burning limestone) is added to the ocean. As learned in science, alkaline substances neutralize acidic substances. By slightly increasing the alkalinity of seawater, the ocean can absorb more CO₂ from the atmosphere and store it in a stable form as bicarbonate ions.

• Benefits: A secondary benefit of this method is the potential to locally mitigate "ocean acidification" caused by increased CO₂, thereby improving the environment for marine life such as coral reefs and shellfish.

2. Mineralization

Mineralization is a technology that artificially accelerates Earth's natural process of turning CO₂ into rock, a process that has occurred over millions of years.

• Mechanism: Certain rocks and industrial residues from factories (such as byproducts from steel and nickel production) contain alkaline minerals that readily react with CO₂. When these materials are finely crushed and exposed to atmospheric CO₂, the CO₂ undergoes a chemical reaction with the rocks or residues, transforming into stable minerals (rock).

• Benefits: Once converted into rock, CO₂ will not return to the atmosphere. Furthermore, using industrial residues contributes to the effective utilization of waste.
  

Growing New Companies

Our donations are used to support companies with these promising technologies.

Company Name	Technology Field	Overview
Karbonetiq	Mineralization	Utilizes alkaline residues from factories and low-cost equipment to efficiently promote the reaction (mineralization) with CO₂. Characterized by its ability to sequester large amounts of CO₂ in a small land area.
Limenet	OAE / Mineralization	Develops a special CO₂-free electric kiln to produce zero-carbon quicklime. This quicklime is a key material for various carbon removal technologies, including OAE and mineralization.
pHathom	OAE	Develops a method to safely recover CO₂ from bioenergy power plants near the coast in a stable form using limestone and seawater, and return it to the ocean.
Planetary	OAE	The world's first company in the field of ocean alkalinity enhancement to have its CO₂ removal validated by a third-party organization. Having graduated from Frontier's program, they have secured multi-million dollar offtake agreements (future purchase commitments) and are scheduled to advance to the next stage in 2026.

Carbon removal is one of the most crucial "trump cards" for tackling the significant challenge of global warming. Advance purchase programs by Stripe Climate and Frontier are vital mechanisms for nurturing nascent technologies like ocean alkalinity enhancement and mineralization, ensuring we are prepared for the future.