Brussels, 21 November 2023 - The Plenary of the European Parliament voted today on its position on the Carbon Removal Certification Framework (CRCF).

ESWET represents the suppliers of Waste-to-Energy technology, a hard-to-abate sector that must rely on alternative solutions to fully decarbonise itself. Thus, we strongly support the position taken by the European Parliament: following the Council’s example, the Parliament acknowledges Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) as a permanent carbon removal activity, securing its status as a biogenic carbon storage method with the potential to endure for a very long time.

Concerning long-term carbon storage, the Parliament asked that the certification of carbon storage in products should initially be limited to harvested wood products or materials for construction storing carbon for at least five decades. As ESWET, we call on legislators not to limit the scope of long-term storage and to carefully evaluate all the available options, especially the ones storing carbon from hard-to-abate sectors.

Since the publication of the proposal by the Commission, ESWET has been asking for clarity when it comes to the possible interaction between the ETS and the Carbon Removals Framework. The monitoring requirements agreed under the Carbon Removal Mechanism can potentially overlap with the EU Emissions Trading System, so the articulation between the two systems has to be carefully designed.

In addition, the European Commission must ensure that the certification methodologies to be established in the follow-up legislation are technology-specific so that they can fully consider the particular features of each technology, including Waste-to-Energy- related technologies.

With both Parliament and Council having adopted their positions, trilogues can now start. As ESWET, we expect the upcoming negotiations to clearly solve the aforementioned pending points in a way that concretely facilitates the development of the framework and allows industries to start their decarbonisation process.