New project: Financing and policy coordination for CO2 removal markets

A new Formas-funded project with a 20.6 million SEK budget will investigate how carbon dioxide removal through carbon capture technologies (BECCS and DACCS) can be scaled up in the Nordic region by connecting technology, energy, and finance. Kenneth Möllersten, a researcher at the IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute and affiliated with SFL and KTH, will lead the project. SFL will be a strategic partner to the research project.
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"We will be working with a fantastic international group of researchers and stakeholders from society in this project. I am really looking forward to creating new solutions together with all of them," says Kenneth Möllersten.

Technical carbon dioxide removal (CDR) solutions, such as Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) and Direct Air Carbon Capture and Storage (DACCS), are likely critical for achieving the climate targets set by the Paris Agreement. However, achieving large-scale deployment of CDR will require not only technical progress but also a fundamental transformation of capital flows, investment structures, and financial systems to ensure long-term sustainability.

The new project addresses these challenges by collaborating with key stakeholders—banks, investors, energy companies, carbon dioxide transport and storage operators, and authorities—to analyse how capital flows and investments can be directed to support the expansion of CDR value chains in the Nordics. Stakeholder insights will support the development of models that link CDR value chains to energy and financial systems, guiding the analysis of how market designs and intertemporal policy instruments, such as Extended Emitter Responsibility, can mobilize large-scale, long-term investments.

The work combines game-theoretic methods and real options modelling with energy system modelling and co-creation policy workshops. The results will advance the scientific foundation for financing and regulatory frameworks and, through close collaboration with key stakeholders, generate proposals that can be implemented in practice to foster investments and the large-scale deployment of carbon dioxide removal.

The project will start on 1 December 2025 and end on 30 November 2030.

Read more on IVL’s site

In 2023, Kenneth Möllersten and Lars Zetterberg authored “Bringing BECCS credits to the voluntary carbon markets – a policy brief by Sustainable Finance Lab” with a comment by Tomas Thyblad, Nasdaq. Read more about the policy brief

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