None of 20 climate policy frameworks ranging from sub-national to global analysed by non-governmental organisation Carbon Market Watch (CMW) adequately address carbon dioxide removals (CDR), it says in a study published today.
CMW analysed the UN's carbon offsetting and reduction scheme for international aviation (Corsia), clean development mechanism (CDM) and Article 6 of the Paris climate agreement, along with six EU policies — the EU emissions trading system, effort-sharing regulation, renewable energy directive, land use, land-use change and forestry regulation, common agricultural policy, and carbon removal certification framework (CRCF) — and national and sub-national policies of Australia, California, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK and the US.
Of these, only France, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK specify in their policy frameworks that carbon removals are supplementary to emissions reductions, one of CMW's four core environmental criteria for CDR to prevent its use as a "fig leaf to avoid or slow down emissions reductions".
Instead, several frameworks, including Corsia, the CDM and Article 6, explicitly allow the use of CDR to offset emissions, while Australia, California, France, New Zealand and Switzerland include removals in offsetting mechanisms or permit their use to reduce emissions cutting compliance obligations.
None of the frameworks were found to set "comprehensive, separate and legally binding" CDR targets, define CDR sufficiently on aspects such as the timescale or vulnerability of storage, or contain robust accounting methodologies — the remaining three of CMW's criteria.
But as a number of these policies are still in their early stages, there is a "window of opportunity" to strengthen their design and implementation, CMW said, and the EU could be a "pacesetter" through its CRCF.
The European Commission in November published a draft regulation to establish the CRCF, 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.
An additional paper commissioned by CMW and also published today warned that the use of temporary rather than permanent carbon storage could have a damaging effect on the environment.
"Temporarily storing CO2 only provides limited benefit to humanity's efforts to tackle the climate crisis and can actually fuel further temperature rises if used to offset CO2 emissions," climate economist Danny Cullenward found in the paper, emphasising that only storage lasting many thousands of years should be considered permanent.
And even temporary storage must last at least until global temperatures peak, which may not be for another century. "The precautionary principle suggests that policy makers should only recognise climate mitigation benefits from carbon that is temporarily stored for a minimum of 100 years," Cullenward concluded.
