Ottmar Edenhofer
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
The (Missing) Third Pillar – Why Climate Policy Needs to Get Serious about Carbon Management
Monday, March 30, 2026 –05:15 – 06:30 PM (CEST)
This session will be held online only. To join virtually, please register in advance using this link.
Seminar Abstract
Professor Ottmar Edenhofer will examine why large-scale carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is essential for meeting climate targets and establishing a third pillar of climate policy alongside abatement and adaptation.
The main barriers to technology development and deployment are institutional, economic, and political. Prof. Edenhofer will present market and governance solutions, including innovative “clean-up certificates” and a European Carbon Central Bank to manage net-negative emissions within carbon market frameworks. By “cleaning up” the atmosphere, CDR can also help reduce free-riding incentives in international climate co-operation. Prof Edenhofer will identify planetary carbon management as the central challenge of 21st-century climate policy.
Climate targets cannot be met without large-scale removal of CO2 from the atmosphere. Even with rapid innovation, projected levels of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) remain far below what is required to stay within internationally agreed temperature limits. The main barriers are no longer technical alone but institutional, economic, and political – reflected in governance gaps that undermine incentives to invest in and deploy CDR at scale. By “cleaning up” the atmosphere, CDR can also help reduce free-riding incentives in international climate cooperation. Recent research therefore identifies CDR as a necessary third pillar of climate policy, alongside emissions reduction and adaptation, and as a critical enabler of net-zero and net-negative pathways.
Prof. Edenhofer will argue that scaling CDR requires new market structures and durable institutions. He proposes clean-up certificates – rights to emit coupled with binding future removal obligations — offer a pathway to integrate removals into carbon market frameworks like the EU Emissions Trading System and make the transition more flexible and cost-effective. Because this system depends on long-term credibility, he calls for a European Carbon Central Bank to issue and manage these certificates, oversee net emissions quantities, and correctly value different types of removals. Viewing CDR as a planetary carbon management system reframes climate policy around the 21st century’s central task: designing the governance needed to enable net-negative emissions.
Speaker Bio
Ottmar Edenhofer is Director and Chief Economist of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research as well as Director of the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (2012–2024) and Professor for The Economics and Politics of Climate Change at the Technische Universität Berlin. Furthermore, he is Chair of the European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change (ESABCC).
Admission information
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