Noah Deich played a key role in the Biden administration’s effort to promote U.S. technologies that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Now he’s trying to do the same thing on the international stage.
Deich, the Energy Department’s former deputy assistant secretary for carbon management, aims to foster carbon removal startups around the globe through a new group he’s founding with support from the online payments company Stripe. The organization, which hasn’t been named yet, would encourage governments to pay companies to scrub CO2 from the air and seas — an approach the Biden administration began pursuing that is now in limbo.
He’s also working as a fundraiser for Carbon180, the pioneering carbon removal advocacy group he helped launch in 2015 as a student at the University of California, Berkeley’s business school. The group, originally known as the Center for Carbon Removal, has grown from two employees — Deich and co-founder Giana Amador — to more than 30 people. Its budget last year topped $12.7 million, and its past donors include pop musicians like Grimes, Halsey and Odesza.
“Carbon180 has been really successful at very small-dollar donations, not just within the art world but within the general public,” Deich said. That’s because the group cuts “through a lot of the political noise and bickering to find something that can appeal to whatever political administration, be valuable for climate and provide opportunities for communities across the U.S.”
