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Publish date: November 21, 2023
News
In November 2022, the European Commission proposed a Certification Framework for Carbon Removals. This proposal seeks to develop a framework for the development of methodologies which can quantify the climate benefit of various types of activities, with a focus on carbon dioxide removal. Carbon dioxide removal is necessary to counterbalance residual emissions and achieve net-zero emissions. However, the ability to monitor, report and verify how much CO2 is being removed by such activities is currently lacking and there is a risk of overestimating their climate benefit.
Today the European Parliament voted in plenary on a variety of crucial climate files, including the Carbon Removal Certification Framework (CRCF) and the Net Zero Industry Act (NZIA). These votes send strong signals on the need for coherent climate policy which supports and manages the deployment of Carbon Dioxide Removal and Carbon Capture and Storage in an environmentally robust way.
Read our press release on the Parliament’s negotiating mandates on CRCF and NZIA:
PRESS RELEASE – Parliament given strong negotiating mandates on CRCF and NZIA
We’re excited to share that we will be present at COP28! The Bellona Foundation will be hosting the Storytelling for Action Pavilion in the Blue Zone alongside BAFTA albert, Futerra and Think-Film Impact Production.
Safeguarding the chapters on CCS in the NZIA are crucial, so says the 23 co-signatories to our letter sent to EU Member States and European Parliament. The NZIA is a golden opportunity to ensure appropriate development of much-needed CO2 storage capacity, enabling industrial decarbonisation and a Just Transition by the retention of important welfare-carrying jobs in the harder-to-abate sector, while at the same time ensuring the proportionate contribution of Oil and Gas companies.
Overall, the target setting in the EU is an example that other regions of the world should follow in terms of creating demand for hydrogen in the right sectors, while backing it up with the renewable generation deployment to meet the demand from the electrolysers. However, the supportive landscape that could ensure targets are met is largely missing, leaving the EU strategy towards hydrogen use ambiguous and thus less effective.
While Carbon Dioxide Removal is an unavoidable component of net-zero, the IPCC is clear in saying that the short-term role of CDR is to supplement emission reductions, to only counterbalance residual emissions and to eventually be net-negative at a global level. The units issued from this certification framework must keep these considerations in mind.
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