Why do carbon removal projects struggle to get financed?

Why is the timing a problem?

A removal plant must be designed, permitted and built before it removes a single tonne. Under a typical offtake, money arrives only as tonnes are delivered and verified. The years in between have to be paid for, and equity investors alone rarely want to carry a whole plant.

Why do lenders hold back?

Banks lend to infrastructure every day, against contracted income. Carbon removal is new to them, and several questions are harder to answer than for a wind farm:

• Technology: many methods have not run at full scale for years.
• Measurement: a tonne must be measured and verified before it is paid for, and methods are still settling.
• Offtakers: contracts are new, and their terms vary from deal to deal.
• Track record: there is little history of defaults and recoveries to price against.

How big is the gap?

Large, and visible in the market's own numbers. CDR.fyi counted about 30 million tonnes of durable removal contracted in 2025, yet deliveries across the market's whole history passed one million tonnes only in late 2025. Much of what has been promised still has to be built.

What would close the gap?

The same thing that opened lending to solar and wind: evidence a credit committee can use. That means projects examined in a consistent way, contracts written so they can be relied on, delivery that can be seen as it happens, and a record that lenders can check. Familiarity follows, and with it, cheaper money.

Where MOTHER Carbon fits

This is the gap MOTHER Carbon was made for. MOTHER Carbon examines each project against the questions a prudent lender asks, keeps the evidence on a signed record, and works with licensed partners who lend on their own credit judgement.

Sources

1. CDR.fyi, Durable CDR Market Update: From Ambition to Execution, June 2026.
2. CDR.fyi, This Week in CDR, week 50, December 2025.