The Netherlands has earmarked €10 million in public funds to support innovations in carbon removal technologies. The subsidy programme is for entrepreneurs and knowledge institutions and will be managed by the government’s Rijksdienst voor Ondernemend Nederland (RVO) under the MOOI: Carbon removal scheme, designed to support collaborative research and development projects that focus on capturing, storing, or permanently removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

RVO has called on entrepreneurs and knowledge institutions to pre-register if they are interested in the new subsidy. Pre-registration is mandatory to participate in the final application round. Collaborative research and development projects will be eligible for grants of up to €4 million each ($4.65 million).

Promotional literature published by RVO identifies the next goal as “to remove more CO₂ than is emitted” and explains that this is done to compensate for residual emissions, also known as net negative emissions. Residual emissions are defined as those emissions that persist once steps have been taken to reduce greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO₂) and to compensate for remaining emissions.

Carbon Herald’s Vasil Velev writes that the initiative “reflects growing policy focus on negative emissions technologies as part of the Netherlands’ broader climate strategy. Innovations supported range from direct air capture and biomass-linked capture systems to methods that embed CO₂ in durable products or store it geologically.”