The European Commission would like to see 5 million tonnes of CO2 removed from the atmosphere each year and permanently stored through technological solutions by 2030, according to a draft version of its communication on sustainable carbon cycles obtained by EUROPE on Friday 19 November.
Scheduled for 14 December, the communication will aim both to “incentivise practices on natural ecosystems that increase carbon sequestration and to foster a new industrial value chain for the sustainable capture, recycling, transport, and storage of carbon”, the document says.
To this end, the Commission would consider developing a legislative proposal on carbon accounting and certification in 2022 to set “scientifically robust requirements in terms of quality of measurement, monitoring, reporting and verification of the carbon removed from the atmosphere, as well as regarding the environmental sustainability, impact on biodiversity, and the amount and type of energy used for the carbon removal process”.
A market for carbon sequestration
One of the Commission’s objectives is to create a regulated EU market for carbon sequestration where land managers could sell agricultural carbon credits to buyers (companies and individuals) who wish to reduce the carbon footprint of their own value chains or who wish to contribute financially to increased climate action and neutralise their own emissions.
However, the draft Communication stresses the need to ensure that credits generated in this way “do not replace mitigation efforts [of greenhouse gas emissions - GHGs] and are coupled to a net long-term benefit in terms of GHG emission avoidance”. It adds that “carbon farming credits can complement those efforts and help address those situations where further reduction of GHG emissions is no longer possible”.
Developing CCUS technologies
The Commission would also like to “create an internal market for CO2 capture, use and storage” (CCUS).
The draft Communication sets numerical targets in this respect: - every tonne of CO2 captured, transported, utilised and stored by industries will have to be reported and accounted for as fossil, biogenic or atmospheric by 2028; - 5 million tonnes of CO2 should be removed from the atmosphere each year and permanently stored through technological solutions by 2030.
In addition, the Commission wants at least 20% of the carbon used in the chemicals and plastics industry to come from non-fossil sources by 2030.
According to two scenarios devised by the Commission, achieving the EU’s climate neutrality objective will require industrial carbon sequestration of between 300Mt CO2 and over 500Mt CO2 by 2050.
A source told us that she was surprised by such figures. “That’s more than all of Europe's forests take in today!” she observed.
Measures envisaged
In addition to presenting a legislative initiative in 2022, the Commission plans to: - create an expert group on carbon sequestration where Member State authorities and stakeholders can share their experiences; - carry out a study to assess the possibility of applying the ‘polluter pays’ principle to emissions from agricultural activities; - create ‘living labs’ that test and demonstrate CO2 sequestration practices in agricultural soils in Europe as part of the mission ‘A Soil Deal for Europe’ (see EUROPE 12801/3).
To support the development of CCUS technologies, the Commission intends in particular to : - better support industrial carbon removal with the Innovation Fund; - propose calls on industrial CO2 capture, use and storage under the Horizon Europe research programme.
In terms of funding, the public sources on which the Commission plans to rely are the common agricultural policy (CAP), the LIFE programme and the cohesion funds. In addition, it plans to propose a new category of state aid for carbon sequestration.
See the communication: https://bit.ly/3oDgShe
See its annexes: https://bit.ly/3qQdbYj (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)