With the details in place for many of the Fit for 55 legislative files that aspire to bring the bloc’s emissions in line with the 55% emissions reduction target for 2030 prescribed in EU Climate Law, policy debates are starting to shift towards 2040 and beyond. Key in these discussions is the role of carbon removals. The importance of carbon removals for reaching net-zero was recently highlighted in the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report, and so-called “negative emissions” were etched into the roadmap for reaching net-zero in 2050, as outlined in EU Climate Law. “The Union should aim to achieve a balance between anthropogenic economy-wide emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases domestically within the Union by 2050 and, as appropriate, achieve negative emissions thereafter” (‘sinks’ here includes “natural and technological solutions” including CCS and CCU).

Currently, removal methods are diverse and are at varying levels of maturity/scalability. A recent impact assessment addressing Europe’s removal readiness indicates that removals from natural ecosystems have been decreasing and that “no significant industrial carbon removals are currently taking place in the Union.” To meet the needs prescribed in EU Climate Law, and to be a viable mitigation solution for the future, progress is needed on two fronts. First, a certification framework to provides credibility, transparency, and oversight for the diversity of removal methods. In November, the European Commission proposed the Carbon Removal Certification Framework (CRCF) to meet this need. The second need to be addressed, and one that is informed by the CRCF, is the economic viability of removals. How can removals be incentivized sufficiently to support the business case for technologies to be developed and scaled? And what role will the EU ETS play in the development of European removals?