Canada and the world are at a decisive point in the climate emergency. Scientists agree that if we want to have any chance of limiting warming to the Paris Agreement’s 1.5 degree Celsius target, we need to rapidly decarbonize the world economy and remove billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere globally.

Tangible progress is being made on decarbonization and carbon capture and storage, but it won’t be enough to meet Canada’s net zero target. We’ll also need to remove billions of tonnes of historical emissions from the air every year. This means scaling a nascent industry known as carbon dioxide removal (CDR).

CDR is a set of technologies that accelerates natural systems and creates engineering processes to take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and store it away durably, for hundreds to thousands of years.

Today, the world only removes and durably stores a few kilotonnes of carbon annually. CDR needs to grow exponentially—to at least 3.8 GT by 2050—and potentially up to 10 GT (especially if we continue to miss our emission reduction targets). The scale of this challenge is immense.

Companies, as well as countries, have a responsibility to help scale CDR to meet their climate commitments. For over four years, I was the Head of Sustainability at Shopify as the company kickstarted the carbon removal industry. I led the creation and management of Shopify’s Sustainability Fund, which deployed over $50 million into 40 CDR companies.

That experience crystallized that one company making investments—however large—was not enough. That was why Shopify chose to be a founding member of Frontier. Frontier is an advance market commitment where a number of companies have committed to buying more than $1 billion of CDR by 2030.

To date, these corporate efforts were catalytic and intended to bring more CDR supply online. But this approach won’t scale. Not every company can do extensive research and scientific due diligence themselves.

Scaling CDR requires a functioning market, where any company or country can purchase carbon credits and be sure their purchases had measurable climate impact. Earlier iterations of carbon markets couldn’t do this. Millions of carbon credits of varying quality have been issued with significant fraud.

Carbon removal credits are different from earlier “offset” credits (which were issued for “avoided” emissions). The traditional offset industry relies on “avoiding” emissions that would take place if business continued as usual. CDR technologies are inherently different as they pull carbon dioxide out of the air and are clearly additional. Most, if not all, CDR projects would not have taken place without funding through carbon credit sales, which means a direct line between credit purchases and climate benefits that can be measured. These technologies ensure that carbon dioxide stays locked away for thousands of years—far longer than the lifetime of a company, a human, or a tree.

As these technologies graduate from the lab to the real world, it is crucial to create and enforce scientifically rigorous standards that can transparently measure and prove that the project captured and stored more carbon dioxide than was emitted to operate the process.

For a CDR buyer to trust that the climate benefit was realised from the project, the carbon credits generated from a CDR activity must be independently measured and verified by independent third parties against the most rigorous standards available.

If we can scale carbon removal by setting scientific standards, building trust in a functioning market, and delivering credits that have a real climate impact, the upsides are almost limitless. But this effort is too important to leave up to just the private sector—it is after all a historical cleanup effort. To prevent the mistakes of the past that led to systemic overcrediting and limited climate impact, governments have a clear role to play.

According to a recent gathering of CDR leaders, the most important role for governments is in defining minimum quality standards for CDR and creating guidelines for use cases for corporations. Other countries are already doing this in their own ways.

The European Union has passed legislation that defines quality in carbon removal, including a minimum 200-year durability threshold (the length of time carbon dioxide must be locked away). The United States is running a Procurement prize for CDR that will set implicit standards and send the market a strong signal on the US Government’s expectations for CDR monitoring, reporting, and verification. The United Kingdom has consulted experts on how to integrate CDR credits into its Emissions Trading Scheme.

Canada has already made significant progress in combating climate change and scaling CDR. However, it is quite fragmented so far. Federal efforts such as a legislated net zero target, a national carbon price, and programs like the $135 million Low Carbon Fuel Procurement Program are critical to building demand for CDR. There are also various provincial-level programs that involve CDR. But more can be done to harmonize these efforts.

Ideal policy interventions in CDR regulate quality (setting a minimum bar for durability, or the length of time carbon is sequestered), mandate demand from the private sector, and provide direct funding for scaling the industry. Like all G20 countries, Canada should continue its progress in implementing such comprehensive CDR policies before 2030.

Canada has the conditions to become a clear leader in CDR—abundant renewable energy, incredible talent in engineering, science, and technology, and existing industries that offer complementary infrastructure (such as logistics, extractive industries, and more). The government has a once-in-a-generation chance to shepherd what will be a multi-billion dollar industry while creating new jobs, increasing productivity, and reaching its net zero target. I encourage our leaders to seize the opportunity.

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In each EconMinute, Business Council of Alberta economist Alicia Planincic seeks to better understand the economic issues that matter to Canadians: from business competitiveness to housing affordability to living standards and our country’s lack of productivity growth. She strives to answer burning questions, tackle misconceptions, and uncover what’s really going on in the Canadian economy.

Immigration isn’t just about attracting the best to Canada; it’s also about ensuring they choose to stay.

Last spring, Statistics Canada released a report on the emigration of immigrants (that is, immigrants to Canada who end up leaving the country). Widely publicized at the time was the seemingly large number of immigrants who did so over the time period studied (1982-2017). But there’s another big finding from the report: the people most likely to leave are those who offer the greatest potential value to the Canadian economy. While immigrants may not choose to leave right away, the results over 20 years are striking.

Individuals with high incomes and education levels are among the most likely to leave Canada after immigrating here. Specifically, immigrants who have a doctorate (PhD) upon arrival have a one in three chance of leaving within 20 years, while those with a master’s degree have a 29 percent chance of emigration.

Altogether, the most highly educated immigrants are about twice as likely to leave Canada as those with a high school education or less. Individuals with a bachelor’s degree are more likely to stay than those with advanced degrees, but there’s still a one in five chance they’ll leave within two decades.

What’s more, individuals selected for their ability to start or grow a Canadian business are also likely to leave. In fact, investors who immigrated to Canada are the most likely of any group to end up leaving (more than 40 percent within 20 years). And entrepreneurs are not far behind (nearly 30 percent).

Finally, it’s also important to note that when immigrants end up leaving, Canada is likely to lose out on future talent as well. Both immigrants admitted as children, and Canadian-born children of immigrants, tend to have higher levels of education in valuable fields, and higher median incomes at 25-years-old and up. In other words, if their parents leave Canada they take another generation of potential economic value with them.

All that said, there’s still a lot we don’t know. This report doesn’t tell us if retention of skilled immigrant groups has gotten better or worse over time; or how it compares with other countries. We do know, however, that economic opportunity is a large driver of the decision to emigrate. Immigrants follow opportunity, and those who can leave will do so if they find better opportunities abroad.

A version of this post was originally published by the Business Council of Alberta at businesscouncilab.com.