Subsidies for Direct Air Capture: Lessons From the Solar Industry

The name of the climate game right now is fast, sustained progress. 

The world needs this both politically and technologically to effectively fight climate change. Progress was achieved both politically and technologically with the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA), which allocated $369 billion to “energy security and climate change,” amounting to the United States’ largest investment in climate action to date. This Comment focuses on how subsidies like the IRA can affect the growth of climate technologies and set them up for long-term progress, and aims to supply a perspective, grounded in the history of a successful climate technology, that can help determine whether the subsidy status quo maintained by the IRA will be adequate for the development of direct air capture technologies.