A Startup Battles Big Oil for the $1 Trillion Future of Carbon Cleanup
Christoph Gebald's company, Climeworks, is a pioneer in carbon-capture technology. Can it grow quickly enough to make an impact in the climate fight?
Gebald in Zürich.
Photographer: Joël Hunn for Bloomberg Green
Most everyone who’s committed their career to solving the climate crisis comes to the field because they have something they want to save. It’s the mountains for Christoph Gebald, whose startup, Climeworks AG, is among the pioneers of sucking carbon dioxide from thin air.
Gebald grew up in the Bavarian region of Germany, and he’s spent two decades in Switzerland, a country synonymous with jagged peaks cloaked in snow and ice stretching to the horizon. The shadow of climate change hovers over the Alps, though. The glaciers clinging to the slopes are receding at an alarming rate. Even the most optimistic scenarios show two-thirds of the Alps’ ice could disappear by the end of the century.