As part of the Yale International Leadership Center’s climate week, YCNCC and the Yale Emerging Climate Leaders Fellowship co-hosted a panel discussion on February 10, 2026, in the Kline Geology Laboratory Tearoom of the opportunities and challenges with scaling carbon dioxide removal across the Global South.
The panelists included:
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Thais Ferraz (Brazil, 2026 Yale Climate Fellow) – Program Director at the Institute for Climate and Society
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Trishna Nagrani (Panama, 2026 Yale Climate Fellow) – Leader of Asian expansion for the world’s leading carbon removal company - Climeworks
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Andhyta Firselly Utami (Afu) (Indonesia, 2026 Yale Climate Fellow) – Chief Experiment Officer of Think Policy
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Noah Planavsky (Yale University) – YCNCC Scientific Leadership Team member and Professor of Earth & Planetary Science
Moderated by YCNCC Managing Director, Toby Bryce, the panel addressed a range of topics centering around responsible deployment of carbon dioxide removal in the Global South. The conversation converged on several key themes, including the need for transparency, the critical importance of co-benefits (and mitigating negative impacts), and financing challenges with CDR deployments in the countries of the Global South.
The panelists were unanimous in their call for transparency from CDR project developers, so that the global community can learn as much as possible, as rapidly as possible, from early deployments. The group also agreed that CDR solutions and projects offering significant co-benefits to communities – or “co-drivers” – will be the ones most likely to scale. To successfully engage with communities, and mitigate potential negative impacts from CDR deployments, Afu Atami emphasized the need to take a “people-centric” approach, while being transparent about potential tradeoffs for local communities. Trishna Nagrani discussed how Climeworks purposefully scales their projects in an incremental, stepwise manner, in order to address risks while they remain small in potential scope. Thais Ferraz commented on the critical importance of managing and addressing risks associated with ecosystems.
The discussion moved on to align on the fact that funding the responsible deployment of CDR remains a significant challenge, particularly in the countries of the Global South. Noah Planavsky suggested that we have an opportunity to rethink philanthropy as a funder of carbon removal and cited the key role non-profit and benefactor dollars can play in kickstarting new projects and building capacity for future deployment. The panelists concurred that funding from a range of public and private sources will be required at increased levels to meet the climate challenge, and dedicated efforts to direct support to CDR projects in the Global South will be essential.
