Shadowing Practice: Advancing Investment in Carbon Removal with Travis Caddy, Business Development Director at Eviden... - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Hello and welcome to Conversations in Clean Tech, the podcast that celebrates the clean tech industry and the people that power it,

brought to you by Brightsmith.

For our seventh season, we're speaking to clean tech leaders about the process of investing in a cleaner planet.

From inspiring stories and words of wisdom to financial forecast and investment insights,

you can learn all about the people and companies who are driving these investments and propelling us towards a cleaner, greener tomorrow.

I'm your regular host, Jenny Gladman, but this season there's a twist.

I'll be taking a few months off to have my second baby.

So I'm handing the reins of our podcast over to a series of fellow Brightsmithers

who will be season seven's super co -hosts.

So without further hesitation.

Hello, everyone.

I am one of your hosts for Conversations in Cleantech.

Today, I am joined with Travis Caddy, who is the Product Development Manager at Evidence.

He has just returned from COP28, and today we'll be reflecting on his experience at COP28 and delve into all things carbon removal.

So hi, Travis.

Thank you so much for being here.

Hey, Alexa.

It's great to be here.

Thanks for having me.

Cool.

Well, just to kick things off, Travis, would you be able just to give us a little bit of context of your journey,

how you ended up in the sustainability space and specifically at Eviden?

Sure, yeah.

So first things first, I've always been very passionate about sustainability.

I grew up next to the Peak District in Sheffield, so I grew up enjoying sort of a natural affiliation towards the rest of nature.

And also, finally, my grandparents co -founded one of the Global North's first uh first ever eco villages in scotland uh called finthorn

which my dad spent most of his child growing up in and

so visiting there as a child um i loved seeing a sort of alternative way of living to the mainstream

that i was brought up in

that was all about sort of living in harmony with nature

and had a real sense of community and

so i always thought it was my destiny i think to to pursue a career in sustainability

and somewhat in the climate world.

And that's what ultimately motivated my decision to read

Geography at University College London,

where I got to deepen my knowledge around sustainability and climate change before finding this opportunity at Evident in early 2020.

This is when Evident was a very small team.

We were only just six.

And for your audience members who maybe haven't heard of Evident's work and the work that we do,

we design market -based mechanisms and build registries to certify the clean economy.

Our origins go back to 2014 when we co -founded IREC, the International Renewable Energy Certificate,

which acts as a guarantee of origin for renewable energy scope to carbon emission claims.

And it's now seen as the global standard for renewable energy certification outside the EU in the US,

where we've implemented IREC across 60 markets, predominantly in the Global South.

And when I joined in 2020, our only product was IREC.

But because of its growth, coupled with our CEO's vision to go beyond certifying just the electron,

we started identifying opportunities to build markets for other emerging asset classes.

So for the last almost four years now, I've been able to oversee the development of new registries for low methane natural gas,

sustainable aviation fuel, durable carbon removal.

So it's been a really exciting time of growth with no signs of slowing down for 2024.

We're nearing almost the 100 employee mark now.

So yeah, it feels really special to be a part of

and marry sort of that passion for climate and sustainability with my crew.

That's amazing.

I always love hearing about how each person's individual journey led them to where they are today.

And especially with all of the work that you've been doing in Evident so far and Evident as a company,

it sounds like you guys have grown so much and been able to achieve so much.

And I'm sure that that's one of the reasons why you attended COP28.

So COP28 marks the 28th year of the UN Climate Change Conference held in the UAE.

Would you be able just to shed a little bit of light of why you attended COP?

Sure, yeah.

I think I can answer that in two ways, one professionally and then one personally.

So Evident had a lot of our partners and clients on the ground.

So it was a really convenient place to book in -person meetings.

And COPs in general really are just a melting pot of all the people

that you could possibly want to meet within the clean economy and climate space.

As you know, I'm also a massive carbon removal advocate,

so I was invited to speak on a couple of panels and talk about the role of the UAE in carbon removal,

but also who should pay for carbon removal, really interesting topic areas.

And also, I find it's really important to have these conversations at COP because carbon removal,

it's still considered a relatively niche topic within the UNFCCC process.

I think traditionally, there's been a much greater focus on adaptation and mitigation.

So it was important for the carbon removal community to be present

and make ourselves loud and clear

that we need carbon removal recognized as a third pillar of climate action and sustainable development beyond just traditional adaptation and mitigation.

You know, we don't get to net zero without carbon removal.

And we can't also just rely on conventional land -based short -term forms of carbon removal.

We need to enable and scale more novel technologies like direct air capture with geological storage,

which is still new, relatively new to a lot of folks as well,

particularly even climate veterans that have focused more on pure decarbonization through renewable energy and hydrogen and other technologies initiative.

And because of that nascency, there's still a lot of skepticism, I think, around these technologies and the role that they can play

and whether they would just be used as a substitute to keep polluting.

So it's really important that, you know, advocates such as myself and others attend these conferences to raise awareness and help educate.

And then I think personally, what I love about the COP process is that it's just

so diverse and global in terms of its delegation

so you know you're meeting people from all around the world

including those from indigenous communities who are often on the front line of climate change

and you get to hear about their experiences their stories what brought them

you know potentially halfway around the world to attend COP

and that's really nice

because you know I think we've come a long way in the climate movement to most people recognizing

that climate change is an existential threat which is a really important step, but a lot of people still view it as a future existential threat.

But climate change, as we already know, it's already the reality and it's already on the doorsteps of millions of people around the world.

And so it's important to recognize that climate change is global, but its effects are always experienced locally.

So to attend COP and have the opportunity to hear about the extreme droughts, the extreme flooding that's going on around the world really equips

you with the vital messaging i think to return home

and share these stories with friends and families

that climate change is is real it's extreme it's happening now

that being said you know i don't think

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we should be motivated by by here by fear we should be motivated by by hope

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and um that's certainly what i've i've come away from from the experience is

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that by by rallying a community that is so passionate about this in places like Dubai,

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you do return feeling energized, although it was exhausting.

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You do return feeling energized and ready for 2024 and furthering the agenda.

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Good.

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Amazing.

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Well, I love what you said about being motivated by hope rather than fear.

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And at the same time, it's so incredibly important to hear about the firsthand

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and experiences of people who are feeling the effects of climate change as well, and that there is that representation there.

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I know that you mentioned that you made a couple panel contributions as well, which is great to hear.

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The choice of having COP in the UAE obviously sparked some

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controversy due to the region's kind of significant involvement in the oil and gas industry.

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I know that this is one of the panels that you were involved in, and so I'd be keen to hear your insight on this matter?

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Of course, yeah.

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So I had the pleasure of moderating a panel on the role

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that the UAE can play in scaling durable forms of carbon removal,

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where we had representatives from a couple of project developers working or thinking about working in the region.

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So we had 1 .5, which is a direct air capture company, and 4401, a mineralization company who are injecting carbon into the ground,

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as well as buyers from Mitsubishi.

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And we had an expert on Article 6,

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where we've already got right to the crux of this issue about the role of oil and gas involvement in climate change,

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specifically within the carbon removal context.

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And I think everyone on the panel was largely in agreement in recognizing

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that oil and gas do indeed have a role to play?

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But, you know, it's not,

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it shouldn't just be used as a form of technology to continue on polluting and continuing with business as usual.

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The important role that oil and gas do play, I think, is that they have the capital

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and the necessary experience in building these sort of large scale infrastructure projects that we need in order to scale them.

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and interestingly you know the UAE

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and the Middle East although it really didn't get spoken about too much apart from this panel was

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that they have a lot of potential for these technologies particularly direct air capture

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and storage so

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if we think about you know what you need to deploy direct air capture

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you really need four things one is access to clean affordable energy DAC is super energy intensive

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and if you're not powered by clean energy you're potentially going to emit more than you store

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and the gulf region has abundant solar energy potential all year round

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which i was on the receiving end at cop uh sweating in my in my suit

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they also have very good geology um you know for direct air capture

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you need to be able to lock away these captured

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emissions from the atmosphere safely securely and durably for tens of thousands of years

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and in the middle east you have a lot of access to depleted oil

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and gas reservoirs as well as a particular type of ultramathic rock known as peridotite,

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which is what 4401 are using to inject their captured carbon.

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And then you also need good human capital.

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And given the vast amount of expertise within the energy sector there, it makes sense to, again, deploy in the Gulf region.

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And then finally, you need infrastructure.

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You need the pipelines to transport the carbon and pump it back underground.

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and a lot of this existing infrastructure in the region can

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be re -tailored to sort of reverse the flow of carbon going into the subsurface.

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So yes, Dubai of course was always going to be deemed as a sort of controversial place to host the COP, but that proximity to

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actors in oil and gas at least allowed us to have a meaningful conversation around the role

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that they can play in certain sectors.

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And I think durable carbon removal is going to be an important example of that.

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Absolutely.

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And it's so interesting to hear about also the different opinions

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that people have within this space and also certain key roles that not only countries,

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but industries and companies have within the energy transition.

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This is something that you touched on earlier on in the conversation, but you mentioned who should be paying for carbon removals.

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Can you say anything else about that?

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Not sure if you have a specific answer or a couple, but I'd love to hear a little bit more about it.

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Sure.

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Yeah.

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So I think one of the panels that I had the pleasure of speaking on was with Robert Hoglund,

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who is seen as a sort of influencer within the carbon removal community.

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And he was able to provide an update on the emissions gap report

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that he collaborated with on uh with carbon gap on last year

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and he found

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that a lot of companies today actually can afford to invest in in carbon removal

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you know a lot of the rhetoric today is

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that it's very expensive and yes it is

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when speaking in the context of sort of traditional um carbon offsets

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and carbon credits but if you look at a lot of these companies particularly tech companies, they have a very high profit to carbon emitted ratio.

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And he has done an exercise in terms of establishing the link between profit

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and new carbon emissions and has found

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that a lot of these tech companies absolutely do have the capacity to invest in these technologies today.

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So I think tech companies have an important role in terms of their budget to contribute to financing carbon removal

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but with that being said you know hard to abate sectors are going to need to invest

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and play a role as well oil

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and gas companies as well

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i think can can be an important actor in this in

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terms of providing not necessarily the finance into carbon removal credits

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but certainly these infrastructure scale projects and we're already seeing

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that through the likes of oxy oxy low carbon ventures through the acquisition of Carbon Engineering, a direct air capture company through 1 .5.

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Ultimately, it's going to have to be governments, I think, that pay for this stuff.

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But in the early days, we really need to rely on voluntary actors who do have the budgets to invest in carbon removal.

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And we've already seen that through the likes of Frontier and Silicon Valley tech companies putting up the money.

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But yeah, we need more financing for carbon removal.

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What we have today is still very limited.

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You know, 5 million tons have been bought on a forward basis, but only around 3 % of that has been delivered.

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So this is barely even a market.

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It's a future market, but it needs investment now to ensure that we have the scale that we need for the future.

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Yeah, absolutely.

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And it's so interesting to be able to already have a vision into what it should be

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and the importance around getting everyone to collaborate to ensure that it is that in the future as well.

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And even just encouraging people to see it as an actual market rather than something that distance will, you know, uncover at some point.

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Out of everything that you took away from COP, and I know that it will be a lot,

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just also going back to one of the things that you said, what were some of those,

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I guess, symbols of hope that maybe you weren't expecting that sounded really positive?

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What was that for you?

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Yeah, I think broadly speaking, the final text that was released, I know a lot of people are disappointed about this in

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terms of not getting phase -out language into the text of the COP agreement,

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but transitioning away from fossil fuels was introduced for the first time.

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And to get sort of,

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you know, however many countries are involved in the COP process to sign up to language around transitioning away from fossil fuels,

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I think was a special time for us to somewhat celebrate.

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But I'm also very conscious that we can't celebrate pledges.

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We need to celebrate actions when we can account for them and when we can measure them.

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So how hopeful I am on certain countries, I think moving away from fossil fuels remains to be seen.

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But I think broadly, you know, there was a lot of other pledges made to contributing to loss of damage funds,

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massive upscaling of renewable energy, methane abatement.

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These are all really positive signs.

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Within the durable carbon removal space as well, we also have the carbon management challenge,

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whereby 20 countries led by the U .S.

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have signed up to storing 1 billion tons of carbon, either from point source or direct air capture by 2030,

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which is a huge demand signal to companies working in the space that governments are in support of this,

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which is uh which is super exciting yeah that's massive all hands on deck

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and on the other side of things i guess what did you see as some of the limitations of cop

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that maybe you were expecting a little bit more from certain things or things

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that you absolutely would want to see in the next cop yeah

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that's a that's a great question i think the limitations of cop sort of speak for itself right?

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You know, this is the 28th edition that we've just taken part in

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and global emissions have continued to rise year on year.

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I think we've had two global pauses, one in 2008 because the financial crisis and also during COVID.

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And so the success of these COP processes, I think, really get brought into question, you know, what is their role?

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And that I think is just down to the nature of diplomacy

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and finding a way for every country in the world to transition away from fossil fuels in a just, orderly manner.

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And I think the challenge that we have and limitations of COP is that,

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you know, certain countries are more prepared and more ready to transition away than others.

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And of course, that's a really sort of fine line to tread in terms of, you know, we need to act urgently.

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But also, you know, countries like the US, UK, EU, we're in a far better financial position,

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I think, to afford this energy transition and take action.

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Whereas other countries who are still developing, who are predominantly in the global south, they may need a little bit more time.

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And that's where I think it's important for countries such as the UK, such as the US to step up at processes like COP

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and say that we are more willing to transition faster than other countries

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and just give those countries a little bit more time.

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And so do you think that certain countries have more of a responsibility to transition quicker than others?

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Absolutely.

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Yeah, so, you know, if I look at the UK's contributions to the climate change and global emissions today, it's very small.

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And a lot of people would argue that it's negligible.

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And I hear all the time, I don't know about you, but people saying, oh, you know,

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we should be worried about China and India and the rate that they are industrializing.

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But I think when we talk about responsibility, it's really important to look back over time as to when this all started.

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You know, when did the Anthropocene begin?

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Well, it started in the UK.

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You know, we were the birthplace for the Industrial Revolution.

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And so when you look through a much more holistic and historical lens,

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you find that the UK has been the fifth largest emitter of emissions, greenhouse gas emissions since that period.

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And so it's important that we fund loss and damage where we can

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and also decarbonize at a much faster rate than others.

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Now, I know that would maybe annoy or frustrate some audience members because,

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you know, ultimately that burden falls on us as the taxpayer it

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but for a lot of these countries that are now being asked to contribute to climate finance

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you know it's a bit like turning up to a five course meal

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and only ordering sort of one espresso towards the end um

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and being asked to split the bill you know and i think that's a nice way to to put it in that,

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you know, we've had the pleasure of industrializing for over two centuries now, which has given us, you know,

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a beautiful country to live in.

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I'm very fortunate to have lived here.

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You know, we have free health care and a lot of other benefits.

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And because of that privilege and what we've inherited, I think it's only right and fair that we contribute to the finance,

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climate finance that is necessary more than other countries absolutely i think that's

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so interesting and i definitely agree as well lastly uh a little question to end on

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but will you be attending cop next year i will indeed yes

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i mean that's the hope yeah

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i'm really looking forward to it have you been to to baku Azerbaijan uh no no nor have i so

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so it'll be um it'll be my first time very much

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looking forward to it it'll be interesting to see how many of the pledges

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that were made at this year's COP actually materialize in that time.

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But yeah, very much looking forward to attending and seeing what's in store.

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Good.

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Amazing.

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Well, thank you so much for sharing your personal experience

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and also your opinions on certain topics that were brought up from COP.

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It's so interesting to hear your personal story as well, and also the importance of carbon removals in the energy transition and getting everyone involved.

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But we really appreciate it.

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Thanks for joining our conversations in Cleantech, and we'll speak to you soon.

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Thanks for having me.

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Cheers.

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This speaking lesson is built on the video “Advancing Investment in Carbon Removal with Travis Caddy, Business Development Director at Eviden..”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: carbon, cop, removal, climate. This video has 278 sentences and 3674 words to shadow. The speech runs for 22:37. The speaker talks at a natural 162 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 83% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.

Key vocabulary in this video

15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
removal noun	/ɹɪˈmuː.vəl/	The process of removing or the fact of being removed.
transition noun	/tɹænˈzɪʃ.ən/	The process of change from one form, state, style or place to another.
capture verb	/ˈkæp.(t)ʃɚ/	To take control of; to seize by force or stratagem.
emission noun	/ɪˈmɪʃ.ən/	Something which is emitted or sent out; issue.
invest verb	/ɪnˈvɛst/	To spend money, time, or energy on something, especially for some benefit or purpose; used with in.
renewable adjective	/ɹɪˈnu.ə.bl̩/	Able to be renewed; capable of renewal.
sustainability noun	/səˌsteɪnəˈbɪlɪti/	A means of configuring civilization and human activity so that society, its members and its economies are able to meet their needs and express their greatest…
infrastructure noun	/ˈɪnfɹəˌstɹʌkt͡ʃə/	An underlying base or foundation for a building, organization, or system.
contribute verb	/kənˈtɹɪb.jut/	To give something that is or becomes part of a larger whole.
fossil noun	/ˈfɑsl̩/	The mineralized remains of an animal or plant.
durable adjective	/ˈdʊɹəbəl/	Able to resist wear or decay; lasting; enduring.
motivate verb	/ˈmoʊ.tɪ.veɪt/	To provide someone with an incentive to do something; to encourage; to actuate.
topic noun	/ˈtɑpɪk/	A subject; a theme; a category or general area of interest.
pledge noun	/plɛd͡ʒ/	A solemn promise to do something.
limitation noun	/lɪmɪˈteɪʃən/	The act of limiting or the state of being limited.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Meaning
look forward to verb	To anticipate, expect, or wait for, especially with a feeling of approval or pleasure; to be excited or eager to.
go back to verb	To stem from; to originate in.
grow up verb	To mature and become an adult.
lock away verb	To lock up; to lock in a safe place, out of view.
look through verb	To take a view of the contents of; search in, either with the eyes or by hand.
put up verb	To place in a high location.
take away from verb	To subtract a quality from; make something seem not so good or interesting.

Sentences worth repeating

Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:

Can you say anything else about that?
What was that for you?
I'm very fortunate to have lived here.

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	has just returned · I've always been · haven't heard
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	was brought · was invited · be used
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	threat which is · people who are · well, which is

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 44 contractions and reduced forms, such as we've, I'm, I've. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “th” sounds: methane /ˈmiːθeɪn/, seventh /ˈsɛvənθ/, birthplace /ˈbɝθˌpleɪs/
The “sh” and “zh” sounds: transition /tɹænˈzɪʃ.ən/, capture /ˈkæp.(t)ʃɚ/, emission /ɪˈmɪʃ.ən/, limitation /lɪmɪˈteɪʃən/, potentially /pəˈtɛnʃ(ə)li/
Long words — get the stress right: sustainability /səˌsteɪnəˈbɪlɪti/, infrastructure /ˈɪnfɹəˌstɹʌkt͡ʃə/, limitation /lɪmɪˈteɪʃən/, potentially /pəˈtɛnʃ(ə)li/, contribution /ˌkɑntɹɪˈbjuʃən/

How to practise with this video

Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like removal, transition, capture.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

Shadowing Practice: Advancing Investment in Carbon Removal with Travis Caddy, Business Development Director at Eviden... - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

Key vocabulary in this video

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Sentences worth repeating

Grammar in this video

Pronunciation to watch

How to practise with this video

What is the Shadowing Technique?