Council and Parliament provisional agreement on EU carbon removals certification framework made available

The Council and Parliament have reached an agreement to establish the first EU carbon removals certification framework. The framework is intended to facilitate and speed up the deployment of high-quality carbon removal and soil emission reduction activities in the EU and includes permanent carbon removals, carbon farming and carbon storage in products.

The regulation differentiates between four types of units:

• permanent carbon removal (storing atmospheric or biogenic carbon for several centuries)
• temporary carbon storage in long-lasting products (such as wood-based construction products) of a duration of at least 35 years and that can be monitored on-site during the entire monitoring period
• temporary carbon storage from carbon farming (e.g. restoring forests and soil, wetland management, seagrass meadows)
• soil emission reduction (from carbon farming) which includes carbon and nitrous oxide reductions from soil management, and which activity must overall reduce the carbon emissions of soils or increase carbon removals from biological matter (Examples of activities are wetland management, no tilling and cover crop practices,  reduced use of fertilizer combined with soil management practices, etc.)

At least the last three units touch upon many aspects of forestry along the entire value chain,  therefore EUSTAFOR will be monitoring all developments closely.

The provisional agreement will now be submitted for endorsement to the member states’ representatives in the Council and to the Parliament’s environment committee. If approved, the text will then need to be formally adopted by both institutions, following revision by lawyer-linguists, before it can be published in the EU’s Official Journal and enter into force.