Council ready to start talks with Parliament on EU carbon removals certification framework
The Council adopted its negotiating mandate for talks with the European Parliament on a proposal to establish the first EU-level certification framework for carbon removals.
This voluntary framework aims to facilitate and speed up the deployment of high-quality carbon removal activities in the EU, resulting in an unambiguous positive climate impact, while fighting greenwashing.
The proposal establishes monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) rules for carbon removals. By complementing efforts to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, it will contribute to the EU’s ambitious goal of reaching climate neutrality by 2050, as set out in the European climate law.
The negotiating mandate, which was agreed at Coreper level, sets out the Council’s position for the start of negotiations (‘trilogues’) with the Parliament to shape the final text of the legislation.
Fighting climate change and reaching climate neutrality require a 360-degree effort. Not only are we taking unprecedented measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but we are also working to counterbalance the unavoidable emissions caused by those hard-to-abate sectors that will inevitably remain carbon dependent. Removing increasing quantities of CO2 from the atmosphere is crucial to achieve global net-zero emissions and limit global warming to 1.5°C. Today’s mandate is the first step towards introducing a comprehensive carbon removal framework in EU legislation and further testament to our climate efforts.
Teresa Ribera Rodríguez, acting Spanish third deputy prime minister and minister for the ecological transition and the demographic challenge
The Council’s stance
Scope of the regulation
The proposed regulation covers different types of carbon removals, including permanent carbon storage through industrial technologies (such as bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) and direct air capture with capture and storage (DACCS)), carbon farming (e.g., restoring forests and soil, and wetland management) and carbon storage in long-lasting products (such as wood-based construction).
The Council’s mandate extends the scope of the activities that can be certified under the new framework to include, in addition to carbon removals, certain types of carbon farming activities that reduce emissions from agricultural soils, as long as they result, overall, in an improvement in the soil carbon balance.
Activities that do not result in carbon removals or soil emission reductions, such as avoided deforestation or the reduction of livestock emissions, are not included in the scope of the regulation.
Certification criteria and procedure
The mandate maintains the Commission proposal’s requirement that carbon removal and soil emission reduction activities need to meet four overarching criteria in order to be certified: QUantification, Additionality, Long-term storage, and sustainabilITY (QU.A.L.ITY).
Based on the QU.A.L.ITY criteria, the Commission, assisted by an expert group, will develop tailored certification methodologies for different types of carbon removal and soil emission reduction activities. The Council has introduced some changes to define more precisely the scope of the delegated acts that will develop those methodologies and better take into account the specific characteristics of the activities covered by the regulation.
The Council’s mandate maintains the key elements of the two-step certification process and the voluntary nature of certification. To apply for certification, operators will have to submit comprehensive information on the activity in question and its expected compliance with the QU.A.L.ITY criteria to a certification body, which will then carry out an independent audit to verify the information and – if the criteria are met – issue a certificate. The certification body will have to carry out regular re-certification audits to reconfirm the activity’s compliance, at least every five years.
Registries and review of the regulation
The Council’s mandate calls on the Commission to establish, four years after the entry into force of the regulation, a common electronic EU-wide registry to store documents related to the certification process, including certificates and summaries of certification audits, and facilitate public access to such information. Until then, the certification schemes under the framework must provide public registries based on automated and interoperable systems.
The text provides for a review of the regulation to be carried out by the Commission by 2028, and subsequently after each stocktaking exercise under the Paris agreement.
Next steps
The Council is now ready to start negotiations with the European Parliament to agree on the final shape of the legislation, pending the Parliament’s adoption of its position. Once a provisional agreement has been reached, the final text will need to be formally adopted by both institutions.
Background
While the EU’s priority with regard to climate action is the rapid reduction of GHG emissions, in order to achieve climate neutrality by 2050, it will also need to compensate for residual hard-to-abate emissions by scaling up carbon removals from the atmosphere. As a first step towards the further integration of carbon removal schemes into EU climate policy, the European Commission proposed on 30 November 2022 a regulation creating a voluntary EU-wide framework to certify high-quality carbon removals.
The objective of the proposal is to encourage the development of carbon removal technologies and sustainable carbon farming solutions. It also aims to create new income opportunities for industries deploying carbon removal technologies or developing long-lasting carbon storage products, and for land managers engaging in innovative carbon farming practices. To that end, it sets out clear and reliable rules at EU level to quantify, monitor and verify carbon removals.
Once the European Parliament has adopted its position on the proposed regulation, the co-legislators will start negotiations on the final shape of the text.