Debate: Sustainable carbon cycles
Date: MONDAY, 17 APRIL 2023
Speaker: Dubravka Šuica
Language: EN

The International Panel on Climate Change points towards the decreasing likelihood of limiting global warming to 1.5°C unless rapid reductions of greenhouse gas emissions occur. The International Panel on Climate Change report clearly states that the deployment of carbon dioxide removal to counterbalance hard—to—abate residual emissions is unavoidable if net zero CO2 or greenhouse gas emissions are to be achieved.  Carbon removals will play a critical role in helping to meet our climate neutrality target, but it cannot be sustainable for drastically reducing emissions, which must remain a priority. Recognising the growing importance of carbon removals, the Commission adopted the Communication on sustainable carbon cycles, which is the subject of the report that we are discussing today. The communication sets out three pillars to establish sustainable and climate—resilient carbon cycles.  First and foremost, we need to drastically reduce our reliance on carbon, for instance, by improving the efficiency of our buildings, transport modes and industries, by reducing our primary resource consumption and moving to a circular economy and scaling up renewable energy.  The second pillar is about the circularity of carbon. We need to recycle carbon from waste streams and emissions from sustainable sources of biomass or directly from the atmosphere to use it in the sectors of the economy that will inevitably remain carbon dependent.  The third pillar is carbon removals. We need to upscale carbon removal solutions that capture CO2 from the atmosphere and store it for the long term. The communication established a roadmap to promote both industrial carbon removal technologies and carbon farming practices. Industrial carbon removal technologies will support the European Union’s green tech leadership and create innovative business opportunities.  Carbon farming will incentivise our farmers, foresters and other land managers to store carbon in soil, trees, shrubs, wetlands and in peatlands, to provide them with a new source of income in return. In addition, practices such as tree restoration or enhanced agricultural soil management have great co-benefits for nature and the sustainability of food supply.  However, to build such new business models for industrial carbon removals or carbon farming, carbon removals need to be credible. Market actors need to be certain that a tonne of CO2 claimed as removed is actually removed and stored. Therefore, we need to establish a framework for the reliable certification of carbon removals. The Commission proposed last year a voluntary EU—wide certification framework as a tool to reliably monitor, report and verify high—quality carbon removals that deliver unambiguous climate benefits.  Quantifying and verifying carbon removals in a robust and transparent way is a crucial first step before the possible future integration into EU climate policy post 2030. In addition, we need to fight greenwashing and ensure that the growing corporate commitments on climate neutrality result in real climate benefit. The certification will provide certainty on the integrity of the removals, which is key considering the growing interest and global investments.  There is also significant European funding supporting the development and deployment of carbon removals available. Common agricultural policy funds can be used to support farmers that invest in carbon farming practices, and the EU Innovation Fund uses the revenue from the EU—ETS to finance carbon removal projects.  There are also already numerous LIFE projects dedicated to carbon farming and funding under Horizon Europe, including under the EU Mission ‘A soil deal for Europe’, under which substantial funds are being channelled to further research and testing of carbon farming practices on the ground.  Beyond carbon farming, biodiversity preservation and increase is also critical to foster our carbon removals. Science is clear: more biodiverse forests are also those that remove more carbon, being also more productive and multifunctional. Healthy wetlands and peatlands are also key for climate change, mitigation and adaptation. In that sense, nature restoration as well as the implementation of the Kunming—Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework Agreement are also vital. It is essential that we transform industry and further enhance the growth of carbon removals. That is why the Commission is preparing a Communication on industrial carbon management as a direct follow—up to the Communication on sustainable carbon cycles that we discussed today. It will set a Union strategy to establish by 2030 a market for the capture, transport, storage and utilisation of CO2.  We should fully reap the potential of carbon removals. At international level, developments are moving fast. In the US, for example, we see unprecedented levels of investment and funding for carbon removals. The Net Zero Industry Act already provides for a simplified regulatory environment for CCS investment and sets a 50 million tonne target for operating permanent CO2 storage capacity annually by 2030.  The communication on industrial carbon management will look at the longer term to identify the needs in infrastructure development, investment and regulation. It will propose a roadmap to ensure that industrial carbon management can fully support the achievement of a climate—neutral European Union by 2050.  Let me conclude by thanking you once again for your work on this file and by expressing our wish for swift progress on the Commission’s proposal for a regulation on a carbon removal certification framework. This lays an important foundation for realising the full benefits of carbon removals.