Researchers in Sweden are looking at ways to enable Nordic countries that overachieve on their climate targets thanks to high bioenergy carbon, capture and storage (Beccs) potential to sell the excess emissions reductions outside the EU.
EU-member Nordic states Denmark, Finland and Sweden could sell "excess" emissions reductions through the cancellation of either annual emissions allocations under the EU's effort-sharing regulation or EU emissions trading system permits, depending on where Beccs ends up in the EU reporting framework, researchers from technical university KTH and environmental research institute IVL suggested.
This would effectively "mimic" a corresponding adjustment — which precludes double counting of achieved emissions reductions by a host and buyer country towards their nationally determined contribution (NDC) to the Paris climate agreement — without interfering with overall EU emissions accounting, IVL researcher Kenneth Moellersten told Argus.
Carrying this adjustment out at EU level would be preferable, the researchers said, but this is not possible because the EU has a single NDC covering all member states, which the bloc has committed to meeting entirely through domestic measures.
Sweden and Finland have particularly high "excess" Beccs potential against their needs to meet national net zero targets, Moellersten said, so this surplus could first go to other Nordic countries with a Beccs deficit. The Nordic region could then look to sell any further surplus to other buyers.
The project aims to avoid letting an "underachieving" EU "grab" the excess mitigation outcome of Nordic countries, Moellersten said.
Sweden has annual biogenic emissions of more than 30mn t of CO2 equivalent (CO2e) from large point sources, amounting to Beccs potential about three times over the "supplementary measures" the country aims to use to contribute to its climate goal, research leader Malin Pehrs of KTH told Argus.
The "excess" 20mn t of CO2e could conceivably be transferred to other parties through Article 6 of the Paris deal, Pehrs argued. Article 6 is designed to allow countries to co-operate on meeting their NDCs, including through mechanisms enabling either bilateral agreements or multilateral trading of emissions reductions.
Sweden is also looking to make use of Article 6 as a buyer country as part of its efforts to reach its 2030 target to cut its emissions by 63pc compared with 1990 levels, which goes beyond its EU contribution. The country's energy agency in December tendered carbon credits with a total mitigation volume of at least 200,000t of CO2e in Ghana.
Sweden and Switzerland signed an initial co-operation agreement at last year's UN Cop 28 climate conference to test rules for international carbon markets for carbon removal technologies. More concrete decisions on the agreement are expected in the next few months, the Swedish energy agency's head of international climate co-operation, Sandra Lindstrom, told Argus earlier this month.
