Brussels, 20 February 2024 – ESWET welcomes the provisional agreement between the European Council and European Parliament on the Carbon Removals Certification Framework as an essential step in decarbonising industry and achieving Europe’s climate targets.

With the Commission’s proposed target of capturing 50 million tonnes of CO₂ per year by 2030, there is an urgent need for incentivising the removals of carbon and creating a well-regulated framework for monitoring and certification.

In particular, the specific recognition of biogenic permanent carbon removal will play a crucial role for Europe to achieve net-zero, as Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) can lead to negative emissions in hard-to-abate sectors such as Waste-to-Energy.

Alignment of the definition of carbon removals with the IPCC’s means certainty for investors and emitters and helps to harmonise a framework that will develop an international market for carbon removals.

Carbon capture technology is at the stage where it can make a serious impact in CO₂ reduction; all that is needed is a policy framework which facilitates and expedites its development. With this and other recent developments such as the Net Zero Industry Act and Industrial Carbon Management Strategy, we commend the EU for taking the initiative in decarbonising European industry.

As details on the final agreement emerge, we call on the EU to ensure that the Carbon Removals Certification Framework interacts with the ETS in a manner that provides incentive for industries to remove carbon and accelerates Europe’s path to net-zero. 

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Press contact:

Valentina FERRARA, Communications Officer

Tel: +32.2.743.29.88