On Wednesday 6 April, the French Presidency of the Council of the European Union transmitted to the EU Member States a first draft compromise on the revision of the European regulation (2018/84) on land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF).
The 2018 regulation sets out Member States’ commitments in the LULUCF sector and establishes rules for the accounting of LULUCF-related CO2 emissions and removals to ensure that it contributes to climate objectives.
On 14 July 2021, as part of the first part of the ‘Fit for 55 package’, the European Commission presented a proposal for a revised regulation to incentivise Member States to increase and improve their natural carbon sinks, with the aim of achieving net carbon removals of -310 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent in the Union by 2030 and climate neutrality in LULUCF by 2035.
The French draft compromise does not affect this objective or the objectives assigned to each Member State. These national targets are set in a three-step approach in the European Commission’s proposal: first up to 2025 (keeping the current rules), then from 2026 to 2030 (binding targets in line with the overall level of ambition for 2030) and from 2031 to 2035 (national targets after 2030 will be proposed by the European Commission by the end of 2025 on the basis of plans submitted by the Member States).
On the other hand, the Presidency proposes to revise certain modalities related to the linear trajectory of each Member State determining the binding annual targets.
According to the European Commission’s proposal, these national trajectories should start in 2022, be based on average greenhouse gas inventory data for the years 2021, 2022 and 2023 reported by each Member State, and end in 2030 on the national targets set.
The proposal also states that the concept of technical correction should be applied for Member States that improve their method of calculating emissions and removals to reflect the effect of the change in method on targets and efforts. Thus, as the value of 310 million tonnes of net removals of CO2 equivalent corresponds to the sum of the Member States’ targets, it can be subject to a technical correction, the European Commission’s text states.
For its part, the French Presidency suggests that the linear trajectory should be calculated after application of the technical corrections to the years 2021, 2022 and 2023 notified to the European Commission by the Member States, “provided that these corrections are duly justified”.
For the calculation of the linear trajectory for the years 2026 to 2029, Member States should communicate to the European Commission by March 2025 the technical correction to be applied to their latest greenhouse gas emission inventory and a detailed explanation of how this correction ensures consistency with the inventory submitted in 2020.
However, these technical corrections should not affect the value of the 310 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent, the French document stresses.
Flexibilities
The draft compromise also modifies some of the provisions concerning the flexibilities left to Member States to achieve their objective.
Paris thus proposes to add a provision that, for each year between 2026 and 2029, a Member State could borrow an amount positive to the emission or absorption target of the following year. However, this amount should not exceed 5% in absolute terms of the annual target for the following year.
In addition, for each of the years from 2026 to 2029, a Member State exceeding its annual removals target could carry over to the following year up to 30% of the difference between the annual sum of its emissions and removals and its annual target for that year.
Natural disturbances
In addition, Paris wishes to review certain accounting procedures in the event of natural disturbances (fires, pests, storms, etc.).
The European Commission’s proposal foresees that after the expiry of the 2021-2025 period, Member States may exclude from their accounts greenhouse gas emissions due to natural disturbances that exceed the average emissions caused by natural disturbances during the period 2001-2020. Paris wishes to apply this provision also to the 2026-2030 period.
If a Member State makes use of this provision, it will have to exclude from accounting until 2030 all subsequent removals that occur on land affected by natural disturbances in the relevant period (2021-2025 or 2026-2030).
See the draft compromise: https://aeur.eu/f/15w (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)