C 323/98
EN
Official Journal of the European Union
26.8.2022
3.8.
The EESC therefore believes that the proposal to amend the LULUCF Regulation will be vital for long-term climate balance and that the role of carbon sequestration should not only be seen as a commercial opportunity, but also as a key component of European agriculture in the future.
3.9.
While ensuring global food security, attributing a value to carbon entails three different challenges:
— sequestration of atmospheric carbon in soil; — mitigation of GHG emissions; — adaptation of the agricultural sector to climate change.
3.10.
A number of land management practices improve carbon sequestration, including:
— afforestation and reforestation; — agroforestry and other forms of mixed farming combining woody vegetation with crop and/or animal production systems; — use of catch crops, cover crops and conservation tillage; — conversion of cropland to fallow or permanent grassland; — restoration of peatlands and wetlands. 3.11.
The potential is important, for example as part of the ‘4 per 1 000’ initiative, the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE) found that the maximum potential of the additional agricultural stock in France was 8,43 million tonnes of carbon per year in the first 30 centimetres of soil. 3.12.
In conjunction with the objective of net zero land take by 2050 set out in the EU Soil Strategy (8), and to ensure that it can act as a carbon sink and produce biomass, the EESC recommends that arable land be adequately protected, and is pleased to note that some Member States are already working on this (e.g. land legislation is being drafted in Estonia). 3.13.
The Communication identifies some challenges for certified carbon sequestration projects, but does not provide an answer on how to: — address the issue of non-permanence: carbon that is sequestered and stored in soil and biomass can be released into the atmosphere, cancelling out the benefits of climate change mitigation; — accurately quantify the actual additional costs since monitoring, reporting on and verifying captured carbon remains a challenge; — take into account the costs of practices to sequester carbon and mitigate agricultural GHG emissions. 3.14.
Finally, the reduction of emissions from the agricultural sector through adapted practices or new technologies should not be forgotten, with energy sobriety and reducing GHG emissions being the priority.
Solutions based on industrial carbon capture, utilisation and storage 3.15.
The communication proposes the objectives that by 2028 any ton of CO2 captured, transported, used and stored by industries should be reported and accounted by its fossil, biogenic or atmospheric origin, that at least 20 % of the carbon used in the chemical and plastic products should be from sustainable non-fossil sources by 2030, and that 5Mt of CO2 should be annually removed from the atmosphere and permanently stored through frontrunner projects by 2030. 3.16.
Fossil carbon will have to be replaced by more sustainable streams of carbon recycled from waste, from sustainable biomass or directly from the atmosphere.
(8)
EESC opinion on the New EU Soil Strategy (OJ C 290, 29.7.2022, p. 131).