A draft report on the EU's planned carbon removal certification framework makes minor enhancements, but fails to shore up the proposals against risks of environmental damage and greenwashing, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have warned.
The report by the European Parliament rapporteur Lidia Pereira, published this week, makes "nice-to-have improvements" compared with the European Commission's initial proposal put forward in November, NGO Carbon Market Watch (CMW) said. Environmental group Bellona Europa welcomed "much-needed" changes to the original plans.
This includes a new article setting out general principles for the use of removal units which eliminates the risk of double counting removals, CMW says, as well as the cutting of a reference to emission reductions in the definition of carbon removals, the use of conservative accounting to quantify removals which should reduce the chance of overestimating removals, and the planned setting up of an EU removals certificate and unit registry, which the NGO says should increase transparency.
And the report excludes very short-term storage, while increasing monitoring and liability requirements for short-term storage, and obliging operators to demonstrate how they would ensure permanent or long-term storage.
Flaws persist
But the centre-right EPP member Pereira's draft "fails to correct fundamental flaws that could cause significant environmental damage, delay climate action, undermine the EU's climate goals and provide a cover for greenwashing", CMW says.
The report's treatment of offsetting as a valid use of certified removals "flagrantly contradicts the scientific consensus that removals need to complement rather than substitute rapid and immediate emissions reductions", CMW says.
"By failing to explicitly rule out offsetting of avoidable emissions, it is still far short of the anti-greenwashing tool it purports to be," NGO Bellona Europa similarly said of the draft.
While preventing double counting, the report fails to account for the potential double claiming of land-based sequestration offsets, CMW says, which would be sold on the voluntary carbon market but could also be counted towards national targets for the sector.
And its "loose" definition of removals leaves open the possibility of certifying temporary storage, which should not be permitted at all, and if included should be clearly differentiated from permanent storage, the NGO says.
If this issue is not addressed, "companies will be able to use carbon storage that lasts as little as a few years to offset emissions that affect the climate for a millennium", CMW warns.
The NGO also calls for requirements for land use and biomass-related activities to be increased to ensure they have a positive impact on the environment, rather than their currently stipulated climate neutrality.
And it urges any CO2 storage outside the EU be obliged meet human rights, monitoring and liability requirements.
The commission's framework establishes the general rules for an EU-wide voluntary framework to certify carbon removals. The regulation's major aims are setting the criteria for quantification, additionality, permanent and long-term storage, as well as sustainability.
A study published by Germany's federal environment office UBA earlier this year warned that the framework "could undermine the environmental integrity of EU climate policies" if its shortcomings and lack of strategic clarity were not quickly remedied.
