EUSTAFOR contributes to the Commission public consultation on the EU Carbon certification proposal

Following a publication of the Commission proposal for the EU carbon certification framework, a public consultation in a form of a feedback on the proposal was open. The consultation was open until 23 March 2023.

Based on EUSTAFOR’s recently published position on the topic, consultation input outlining the key concerns regarding the upcoming voluntary certification system was elaborated. Namely, EUSTAFOR emphasised that EU carbon removals certification should incentivise long-term climate benefits over short term carbon offsets and an extra careful approach is needed while setting up a carbon removals certificate system through EU legislation. Such a system cannot serve solely as a tool to offset the emissions of the emitting sectors by natural ecosystems, i.e. forests.

In the climate mitigation context, besides looking at how much CO2 can be removed from the atmosphere, the stronger focus should be on how to secure long-term flow of sustainable, renewable raw materials that will replace as much as possible the use of fossil-based materials, hence directly prevent the inflow of new non-biogenic carbon to the atmosphere.

EUSTAFOR used the opportunity to raise and further develops the 3 key points relevant for state forests, namely:

1. Quantification
2. Additionality
3. Finance

The full contribution is available here.