Cop 27: California, Massachusetts to push CO2 removal

State legislators from California and Massachusetts plan to introduce bills to promote carbon removal to ensure the success of legally binding net zero targets.

California state senator and vice-chair of the state's Joint Committee on Climate Change Policy Josh Becker (D) and Massachusetts state senate majority leader and chair of the Senate Climate Change and Global Warming Committee Cynthia Stone Creem (D) will file bills in January to push for carbon removal in their respective states, according to policy announcements made during the Cop 27 UN climate summit.

California's bill will support both nature based and technological solutions for carbon removal, so long as projects comply with "strict criteria for additionality, durability, measurement and verification," Becker said.

The legislation will require those responsible for emitting greenhouse gases (GHGs) to pay for carbon removal, starting with a requirement to offset a small percentage of emissions that will grow over time until all emissions must be fully offset by carbon removal by 2045, according to Becker.

At the end of last legislative session, California codified its 2045 carbon neutrality goal, which also called for at least an 85pc emissions reduction in meeting the target.

California will need to remove about 65mn t of GHG emissions to offset the remaining 15pc of its net zero target, according to Becker.

To ensure that the state's capacity for carbon removal will sufficiently grow by 2045, the bill aims to give investors and developers the confidence needed to invest in these solutions by creating "clear, early demand for high quality carbon dioxide removal solutions by 2030," Becker said.

Similarly, Massachusetts' legislation will establish a state-administered, standards-based procurement program to provide demand support to catalyze diverse carbon removal projects.

Last year, the state signed into law a 2050 net-zero target, which also called for at least an 85pc emissions reduction in meeting the goal and planned to rely on negative emissions from natural solutions to address the remaining 15pc, according to Creem.

"However, it has become clear that our natural resources likely won't have the capacity to reduce the negative emissions of that large a scale," Creem said. "That means we need to develop new, innovative methods of carbon removal and sequestration to achieve net zero in Massachusetts on a timely basis."

While the state will be agnostic about what methods it will use, the bill will exclude those that "facilitate the extraction, refinement or delivery of fossil fuels, or otherwise perpetuate fossil fuels in any sector," Creem said.

The bill will place environmental justice at the center of the state's carbon removal efforts, according to Creem.

"The legislature is excited, not just because [the bill] helps fill a gap in our efforts to mitigate climate change, but also [because] it presents an opportunity to develop new industries and create local jobs," Creem said.

By Tomas Russo