Effective giving: the numbers behind Climate Cleanup
Some people choose a charity the way an investor chooses: how big is the problem, how solvable, how neglected, what does one euro buy, what would happen without it, and where can I see the numbers. This page answers those six questions with our own figures. It is also the test we hold ourselves to.
How big
Our goal is a number: 1,500 gigatonnes of CO₂ back into nature, into soil, forests and seaweed, rock and buildings. A goal that is a number asks for an organisation that can count, and that is what we are built for.
The number has a physical basis. Since 1850, people have burned coal, oil and gas worth about 1,850 gigatonnes of CO₂, and cleared land for about 900 more: some 2,750 gigatonnes in all (Global Carbon Budget 2025). Part of that is now in the oceans and in regrown vegetation; the rest is in the air, where it is pushing the climate toward tipping points, several of which become likely between 1.5°C and 2°C of warming (Armstrong McKay et al., Science, 2022). Removing 1,500 gigatonnes, by bringing life back, restores the carbon balance to a level at which cascading tipping points are no longer likely and life has far better chances. That is the figure in our Green Paper since 2020.
In handier units: 150 tonnes per person, about five truckloads each, or about 20 gigatonnes a year for the rest of this century. The world removes about 2.2 gigatonnes a year today, almost all of it through forests and land, and the pathways that keep 1.5°C within reach ask for about 8.75 gigatonnes a year by 2050 (State of Carbon Dioxide Removal, 3rd edition, 2026; summary by Carbon Brief).
How solvable
Life has pulled carbon from the sky for billions of years. Forests, grasslands, peat, plankton and soils built the living world by doing exactly that. The work now is to help life do it again, at scale, and to pay the people who do it: farmers, foresters, builders.
Natural climate solutions can provide about 37% of the cost-effective CO₂ mitigation needed by 2030 for a good chance of staying below 2°C, and the same study found that they received only about 2.5% of public climate mitigation finance (Griscom et al., PNAS, 2017). The gap is not biology. It is counting and paying.
So we work not on symptoms but on the structure underneath: an economy that returns carbon to nature, and pays for it. We take carbon storage from experiment to practice.
How neglected
Nobody pays a farmer for carbon in her soil, or a builder for carbon in his timber frame, until someone can count it in a way a buyer, a regulator and a court accept. That measurement layer barely exists for nature-based removal. The EU adopted its first rulebook for certified removals, the CRCF, in 2024; its certification methods are being adopted through 2026, and the EU-wide registry for certified units is planned for 2028. Until then each certification scheme keeps its own. This is the lane we work in:
Evaluators of climate giving have said that the next thing carbon removal needs is standards that fit policy, not only corporate purchases (Giving Green, Scaling Carbon Dioxide Removal, 2024). That is this work: proving methodologies, certifying carbon, drafting policy, backing the innovators on the ground, where markets cannot pay yet.
What a euro buys
We do not sell tonnes. The carbon market pays, once units exist, for delivered tonnes. Your gift is seed capital: it pays for the part the market does not pay for yet, discovering what works, proving it in the field, writing the method, getting it recognised, and giving it away. Every euro is leverage: it unlocks work that then runs on public money, on buyers and on the market.
| What the money does | Where it stands, live (2 November 2026) | Target 31 Dec 2027 |
|---|---|---|
| Projects on the open registry | 174 | 250 |
| Tonnes of CO₂ on the open ledger | 515,813 | 1,000,000 |
| Tonnes bought by buyers, certificate in their name | 19,372 | growing |
| Tonnes delivered as verified certificates (registry count) | first delivery Oct 2026, being entered | 50,000 |
| Oncra recognised under the EU CRCF | preliminary report: 209 of 269 requirements met | recognised |
| Members of the 1500 Club | 78 of 1,500 | 1,500 |
Registry and club figures on this page are read live from registry.oncra.org and from our own books, not typed in by hand.
A full 1500 Club, 1,500 people at about 20 euro a month, is about 300,000 euro a year: it pays for discovery, the public measurements and the core team. Most members give 10 to 30 euro a month. The 2026 accounts, and the cost per tonne on the ledger they imply, are added here when the year closes.
What would happen without it
We cannot prove a counterfactual; nobody can. We can show the chain, method, registry, recognition, payment, and who sat at each table, and say what is not happening anywhere else: nobody else is asking the Dutch building calculation rule to report the carbon stored in buildings; no accepted method yet pays Dutch farmers for carbon in their soil; and "nature came back" is still an opinion rather than a measurement.
What did not work
Whoever speaks in units must also say what did not work. The ocean project in Sulawesi did not go ahead. The Life Node is built but not yet validated. Oncra is not yet recognised under the EU CRCF: the preliminary review of October 2026 found 209 of 269 requirements met, and the rest is work in progress. This list gets longer every year, and it stays on this page.
Where to see the numbers
- The registry, open to everyone: registry.oncra.org
- The Life Node and the Life Oracle standard: life.oncra.org
- The strategy and the yearly scoreboard: our Green Paper. Every quarter, members receive what we delivered and what comes next.
- Climate Cleanup Foundation, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, is a Dutch ANBI, a registered public benefit organisation: legal and ANBI details.
We welcome evaluation. Our data is open; write to act@climatecleanup.org and we send the files.
How to give
Give once or monthly, from anywhere: secure checkout by card, PayPal or bank transfer. Become a member of the 1500 Club, one place for every gigatonne, or give once. Dutch taxpayers can deduct a periodic gift in full.
Sources
- Global Carbon Budget 2025 (Friedlingstein et al., Global Carbon Project, 2025; fossil and land-use totals summed from its historical budget, 1850 to 2024)
- Exceeding 1.5°C global warming could trigger multiple climate tipping points (Armstrong McKay et al., Science, 2022)
- The State of Carbon Dioxide Removal, 3rd edition (Smith et al., 2026)
- Q&A: the current state of carbon dioxide removal around the world (Carbon Brief, 2026)
- Natural climate solutions (Griscom et al., PNAS, 2017)
- Regulation (EU) 2024/3012, the CRCF (European Union, 2024)
- Scaling Carbon Dioxide Removal: strategy report (Giving Green, 2024)
- Oncra registry (Oncra)
- Life Oracle (Oncra)
Not ready to give yet?
Then follow the work first: an occasional update on what we shipped, learned, or are about to try.
Mit deiner Anmeldung erklärst du dich einverstanden, gelegentlich Updates von Climate Cleanup zu erhalten. Wir schicken dir einen Link zur Bestätigung. Jederzeit abbestellbar.