On Wednesday 1 March, the European Parliament’s Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) adopted – by 64 votes to 6 with 8 abstentions – the own-initiative report on sustainable carbon cycles, tabled by Alexander Bernhuber MEP (EPP, Austrian). The nine compromise amendments were adopted.
In this text, MEPs emphasise the major role that agriculture and forestry play in the action plan for the development of sustainable solutions to increase carbon removals, as announced on 14 December 2021 by the European Commission in its ‘Communication on sustainable carbon cycles’.
While the ENVI Committee recognises the potential of these measures, it argues that there is a need to better reward farmers who voluntarily engage in a transition to sustainable and biodiversity-friendly agro-ecological and agro-forestry practices. MEPs are highlighting the opportunity for farmers to transform their business model by turning carbon farming into a source of income. MEPs are also backing the European Commission’s intention to introduce a framework to identify activities that remove carbon from the atmosphere, while arguing that a new monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) framework should also be used to encourage these new types of carbon removal activities. Mr Bernhuber is of the opinion that measures to invest in carbon cycling must be attractive, flexible and simple to implement. He said after the vote: “We also believe it should be voluntary and incentive-driven without unnecessary bureaucracy and obligations”.
Furthermore, according to the ENVI Commission, a certification scheme for EU governance of carbon removals would also promote a harmonised implementation across Europe and combat greenwashing.
The text is expected to be presented in plenary on 17 April.
See the compromise amendments: https://aeur.eu/f/5me (Original version in French by Nithya Paquiry)