# Megatrends One Year Later – #9: Climate-Positive Technologies – What I Predicted, and What’s Actually Happening
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“The next generation of infrastructure drives economic growth through purposeful design.” - Futurist Jim Carroll One year ago, in July 2025, I published Megatrend #9: Climate-Positive Technologies as part of my 30 Megatrends series. Here's part of what I wrote: What is it? “Climate-Positive Technologies” used in infrastructure and industries are not just about reducing harm; they’re about actively enhancing ecological systems and generating substantial economic value at the same time. What exactly does “climate-positive” mean? It transcends the idea of net-zero carbon emissions by actively generating environmental benefits, specifically by extracting additional carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. So how do things measure up? Slow and steady progress for the trend. The honest story is uneven progress across the six technologies I named, not one clean number. Carbon-negative concrete is the standout: CarbonCure's CO2-mineralization systems now run in hundreds of batch plants across two dozen-plus countries, have gone into more than 10 million truckloads of concrete, and have permanently locked away close to 750,000 tonnes of CO2 — quiet, boring, and actually scaling. Direct air capture is the cautionary tale in the same trend. Climeworks' flagship Mammoth plant in Iceland captured only about 750 tonnes in its first ten months against a 36,000-tonne nameplate — roughly 2% utilization — though its next-generation tech claims to halve both cost and energy use, and the wider sector now counts 84 DAC plants operating worldwide. Enhanced rock weathering is moving faster: Lithos Carbon's basalt-on-cropland approach delivered over 5,000 certified tonnes of removal in a single batch, seven times any prior delivery, with Climeworks now buying in as a partner. Green hydrogen is the one running behind. The committed global project pipeline actually shrank by roughly 10 million tonnes through 2030 as deals got paused or cancelled, and unsubsidized production still costs $3.50-$8/kg — electrolyzer costs rose rather than fell over the past few years. Verdict: Real, but running at six different speeds. Concrete and rock weathering are ahead of plan, direct air capture is proving harder than the demos suggested, and green hydrogen's cost curve hasn't bent yet — exactly the uneven, technology-by-technology reality "purposeful design" always implied.

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Source: https://jimcarroll.com/2026/08/megatrends-one-year-later-9-climate-positive-technologies/