Climeworks

After working to expand Tesla’s operations internationally, Douglas Chan is leading a similar effort at Swiss climate tech company Climeworks. After working to expand Tesla’s operations internationally, Douglas Chan is leading a similar effort at Swiss climate tech company Climeworks. Justine Calma is a senior science reporter covering energy and the environment with more than a decade of experience. She is also the host of Hell or High Water: When Disaster Hits Home , a podcast from Vox Media and Audible Originals. Microsoft, Stripe, Shopify, H&M — hell, even Coldplay — are some of the big-name clients paying Swiss company Climeworks to take carbon dioxide out of the air . Climeworks became the first company to sell the service , using its new-fangled “direct air capture” technology, in 2017. There’s still protest from some environmental advocates over this strategy for tackling climate change. They’d rather see these brands stop pumping out pollution. Unfortunately, that’s not happening nearly fast enough to keep global temperatures from rising. And demand is rising for ways to clean up all the carbon dioxide pollution building up in our atmosphere. Climeworks runs what’s currently the world’s largest operating direct air capture facility . And it’s planning to scale up massively. That’s a big task for former Tesla director Douglas Chan, who Climeworks recently brought on as its chief operations officer. The Verge spoke with Chan about what’s next for the company and what the carbon removal industry might have to learn from electric vehicles. You had a big role at Tesla before joining Climeworks — why get into carbon removal after EVs? Do you see the work of carbon removal as complementary to what Tesla does? Your data can be used to monitor for and prevent unusual and possibly fraudulent activity (for example, regarding advertising, ad clicks by bots), and ensure systems and processes work properly and securely. It can also be used to correct any problems you, the publisher or the advertiser may encounter in the delivery of content and ads and in your interaction with them. Content presented to you on this service can be based on your content personalisation profiles, which can reflect your activity on this or other services (for instance, the forms you submit, content you look at), possible interests and personal aspects. This can for example be used to adapt the order in which content is shown to you, so that it is even easier for you to find (non-advertising) content that matches your interests. Information about your activity on this service (such as forms you submit, content you look at) can be stored and combined with other information about you (for example, information from your previous activity on this service and other websites or apps) or similar users. This is then used to build or improve a profile about you (that might include possible interests and personal aspects). Your profile can be used (also later) to present advertising that appears more relevant based on your possible interests by this and other entities. Your device might be distinguished from other devices based on information it automatically sends when accessing the Internet (for instance, the IP address of your Internet connection or the type of browser you are using) in support of the purposes exposed in this notice. In support of the purposes explained in this notice, your device might be considered as likely linked to other devices that belong to you or your household (for instance because you are logged in to the same service on both your phone and your computer, or because you may use the same Internet connection on both devices). With your acceptance, certain characteristics specific to your device might be requested and used to distinguish it from other devices (such as the installed fonts or plugins, the resolution of your screen) in support of the purposes explained in this notice. With your acceptance, your precise locatio