Japan Airlines and Climeworks Solutions have signed what both companies describe as the first-ever purchase agreement for carbon dioxide removal credits designed specifically to meet ICAO’s CORSIA requirements. Neither side disclosed volumes or pricing, and on numbers alone the deal would not register in a market that talks in hundreds of millions of tonnes. Its significance is structural: CORSIA demand, until now met almost entirely by avoided-emission and reduction credits, has been formally opened to durable carbon removals, and one of Asia’s largest airlines is buying them directly ahead of the scheme’s mandatory phase.

What the Deal Actually Contains

Under the agreement, Climeworks Solutions, the portfolio and procurement arm of the Swiss direct air capture pioneer, will source a portfolio of CORSIA-eligible CDR credits for JAL across multiple removal pathways, according to FlightGlobal’s reporting. Alongside those CORSIA-compliant removal credits, JAL will also purchase Climeworks’ own direct air capture credits, per the companies’ announcement.

The structure matters. JAL is not buying a single project’s output. It is outsourcing the eligibility problem to an intermediary that assembles a screened portfolio, which is exactly the service Climeworks Solutions launched in July 2026 when it unveiled a compliance-ready carbon removal offering targeting CORSIA, Article 6.2 mechanisms and the EU’s Carbon Removal Certification Framework. This deal is the first visible proof of that product finding a compliance buyer.

The Supply Squeeze Behind the Timing

JAL is moving early into a structurally short market. ICAO and IATA estimates put first-phase CORSIA demand at more than 200 million tonnes against roughly 38 million tonnes of eligible supply, and airlines must cancel eligible units for the 2024-2026 phase by January 31, 2028. Participation widens from 130 states in 2026 to 134 in 2027, when the scheme turns mandatory for most international routes.

The bottleneck is authorization, not project activity. Credits need host-country Letters of Authorization and corresponding adjustments under Article 6 before airlines can use them, and that paperwork is moving slowly. This week Quantum Commodity Intelligence reported that nearly 17 million credits under CORSIA’s first phase, and likely a larger volume, are stranded by technical delays. Against that backdrop, securing any new category of eligible supply early is rational procurement, not branding.

JAL has form here. Alongside Singapore Airlines, it retired significant volumes of credits against Phase 1 obligations in early 2026, among the first carriers to do so. Nikkei Asia reports the airline now intends to keep buying credits directly ahead of the 2027 demand rush, when mandatory participation pulls dozens of additional carriers into the same shallow pool.

Why Removals Change the CORSIA Equation

CORSIA’s eligible unit list has so far been dominated by reduction-type credits from approved programs, with removals a marginal category. A dedicated CDR purchase agreement signals two shifts.

First, airlines are beginning to treat durability as a compliance attribute, not just a marketing one. Removal credits with long storage horizons carry none of the reversal risk that has dogged forestry supply, and they align with the direction of EU thinking on what should count toward climate targets after 2030.

Second, the deal gives removal developers a compliance demand signal at a moment when most CDR revenue still comes from voluntary corporate buyers. An EU-commissioned report published this week adds pressure from the policy side: it concludes CORSIA can address airline emissions only to 2035, with deeper structural decarbonisation required toward 2050. If regulators hardwire that logic into post-2035 rules, credits with genuine permanence will hold value longer than cheap reductions.

What This Means for Buyers and Developers

For airlines and other compliance buyers, the JAL structure is a template worth studying. Direct, early procurement through a portfolio intermediary transfers eligibility risk to a specialist, at the cost of paying for that screen. Waiting for spot supply in 2027 means competing for whatever tonnes have cleared authorization by then.

For removal developers, CORSIA eligibility is now a concrete revenue pathway rather than a theoretical one, but the bar is the same Article 6 authorization machinery that is strangling reduction credit supply. Developers without a host-country strategy will not benefit from this demand shift.

For investors, watch the pricing spread. If CORSIA-eligible CDR credits begin trading at a premium to both non-eligible removals and eligible reductions, that spread becomes the market’s first real price on durability inside a compliance system.

What to Watch

Three markers from here. First, whether ICAO or host governments clarify how removal credits are treated under CORSIA’s post-2027 phases, since eligibility lists drive every procurement decision. Second, whether other carriers replicate the portfolio-intermediary model or negotiate bilateral offtakes with removal projects directly. Third, the pace at which the 17 million stranded phase-1 credits clear their technical delays, because that release would temporarily ease the shortage JAL is positioning against.