The European Commission’s proposal to establish a voluntary framework for the certification of carbon removals in the European Union, unveiled on Wednesday 30 November, has raised many questions among stakeholders, with some, in particular NGOs, expressing concern about the many grey areas.
Carbon Gap, a self-styled non-profit organisation whose aim is “to eliminate the carbon dioxide that is already heating up the planet”, has criticised the lack of precision in the text (see EUROPE 13074/9).
Like the NGOs CAN Europe and Carbon Market Watch, it believes that the proposed certification framework introduces “a high degree of confusion by incorrectly defining certain CO2 emission reductions as carbon removal”.
“Avoiding further forest conversion, for example, and many other biogenic emission reductions are critical activities that urgently need more support, but that does not make them carbon removal”, Carbon Gap said in a statement.
For Carbon Market Watch member Wijnand Stoefs, it is problematic to lump three types of carbon removal activities (permanent industrial storage, storage through land management or ‘carbon farming’, and storage in products) into a single framework, as each of these methods stores carbon for very different lengths of time, has varying monitoring difficulties, and carries very different risks of reversal.
“Why are non-permanent removals even included in this scheme?”, he asked.
For its part, the Commission has given assurances that it will ensure that a clear distinction is made between the length of time carbon is removed from the atmosphere when drafting future delegated acts establishing certification methods for different types of carbon removal activities.
Carbon Market Watch also deplores the inclusion of a wide range of potential carbon farming activities, while there are “major differences in climate impact between carbon stored in trees, soil or peatlands”, as well as the failure to take into account greenhouse gases released by natural carbon sinks.
NGOs also criticise the lack of clear rules on liability for releases of stored carbon - due, for example, to forest fires - that could occur years, decades or even centuries from now.
Representing the EU’s agricultural cooperatives and organisations, Copa-Cogeca also highlighted the lack of clarity in the text at this stage. Unlike Carbon Market Watch, the organisation found the definition of ‘carbon farming’ practices too restrictive, due to the exclusion of mitigation measures. On this point, it agrees with the European Landowners’ Organization (ELO), which has called for emission reductions to be taken into account “so that landowners have sufficient incentives not only to sequester carbon, but also to reduce their emissions”. (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)