Jan Patzer

✳️ CDR is getting its own department in Germany's government ✳️ The German Federal Government is creating a dedicated department for negative emissions! The team will be part of their 'National Climate Policy' sub-division, according to a recent draft. But there's more exciting news! Two weeks ago, the cabinet approved a draft budget that earmarks: ‣ €111 million for procurement of negative emissions in 2026 ‣ €320 million committed for subsequent years This hints at Germany's first direct investment in CDR - hopefully soon replacing the high-risk, outdated CDM credits purchased by government agencies. With its significant industrial footprint and ongoing climate commitments, Germany needs to embrace CDR as an essential component of climate action. It's been great working with Stefan Schlosser at Deutscher Verband für negative Emissionen e.V. (DVNE) to contribute to the growing understanding of CDR's role in German climate policy.

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Transport plan with ambitious climate goals? Austria shows why most of them are failing. Vienna recently scrapped its famous €1 daily transport fare. Prices jumped 26% overnight due to money problems. This made me dig into Austria's 2030 Mobility Masterplan. What I found was ambitious. It aims to be climate neutral by 2040. They realised that simply switching to electric cars is not sufficient (a mistake many places are making). They need people out of cars and into trains and buses or walking and cycling. But here's the problem: it's all carrots, no sticks. 🥕 The plan offers nice things like: • Good public transport • Better bike lanes • Digital transport apps But it avoids the hard stuff completely. No parking reforms. No road pricing. No limits on car use. They launched a "Climate Ticket" for unlimited travel across Austria. People didn't switch from cars like they hoped. 🚗 Austria is now way off track to meet its 2030 climate goals. Research shows carrots alone rarely get people out of their cars. You need sticks too - things that make driving less attractive. Cities like London and New York use congestion charging. Paris and Amsterdam are removing parking spaces every year. These places see real change in how people travel. Austria's plan sounds good, but it was never going to deliver. It's a common mistake in transport planning. 💭 Many cities write climate plans full of good intentions. But they shy away from policies that might upset drivers. The result? Plans that sound great but don't deliver results. Want to read my full analysis of Austria's transport strategy and what other cities can learn from it? My newsletter drops every Monday with fresh insights on transport policy. Subscribe now to get next week's deep dive straight to your inbox. Does your country have a credible climate-tackling transport strategy?

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September at WHU’s entrepreneurial ecosystem: Interesting to see an increasing number of AI startups in our monthly overviews 🥳 Here is the overview the WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management investment news for September: ✔ Onconetix (US): Joseph H. Private placement $12.9M Oncology company (Nasdaq: ONCO) with FDA-approved BPH therapy and prostate-cancer diagnostics. ✔revel8 (DE): Julius M. Seed Round €7.0M GenAI simulations that train employees to resist social-engineering across email/SMS/chat/voice/video. ✔ Conduct (UK): Jan Philipp Haas Seed Round $12.0M Agentic AI that understands legacy enterprise system so teams can “chat with” their core software. ✔ Pactos (DE) Antonio Zill, Philipp Eckert Seed Round €2.7M AI-powered platform to manage the external workforce from source-to-pay with compliance built-in. ✔ MELP (LT) Robertas Saltis Šaltis Seed Round €1.25M Employee engagement & internal comms app with secure messaging and anonymous feedback. ✔ encentive GmbH (DE) Nicolàs Juhl (Boldt) Seed Round $7.4M Industrial energy-management platform that shifts usage to greener, cheaper power. ✔ Constant Energy (TH): Franck Constant Debt Financing $9.5M C&I solar developer/operator scaling renewable assets across Southeast Asia. ✔ K2 Mobility (DE): Markus Kroeger Early VC Round SaaS for charge-planning and energy management for electric trucks and buses. ✔ Easee (NL): Elly Nkya, Yves Prevoo Acquisition CE-certified online eye exam (SaMD) bringing tele-optometry to consumers and partners. ✔ betterview (CH): Michael Wendt Acquisition Laser eye-surgery provider offering advanced refractive procedures. This post was also a good excuse to play around with the new Sora2 video generation model 🙃

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