EU Regulation

A look at the various funding programmes of Horizon Europe

The program consists of four main pillars, each having dedicated funding and established working programmes that guide priorities for research and funding support:  

Adapted from Horizon Europe: Investing to shape our future (2021)

• Pillar I – Excellent Science: aimed at strengthening the excellence and competitiveness of the EU’s scientific base. Three initiatives take the work forward:  

• • European Research Council: provides funding to researchers and their teams working on frontier science topics, with an emphasis on early-stage researchers.  
  • Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions: focuses on enhancing the knowledge and skills of researchers through mobility and training.  
  • Research infrastructures: ensures world-class research infrastructure in Europe that is integrated, interconnected, and available to the top researchers in Europe and across the world.  

• Pilar II – Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness: centred around 6 clusters that tackle key global challenges underpinning EU policies and the Sustainable Development Goals, with a total of €53.5 billion. The launch of “Missions”- specified in the main work programme – is also part of the strategic planning process. Each cluster publishes a number of projects and calls within the main work programme for the relevant year, following priorities in R&I for the EU. Horizon Europe sets out its own Technology Readiness Level (TRL) scale, and projects are set to support the path towards different stages of maturity through a diverse range of actions including Research & Innovation Actions (RIA), Innovation Actions (IA) and Coordination and Support Actions (CSA).  

• Pilar III – Innovative Europe:  

• • European Innovation Council (EIC): promotes breakthroughs, deep tech and disruptive innovation with scale-up potential at the global level through all stages of innovation.  It has two operating modes, an “Open” fund, holding no thematic preferences, and a “Challenge” fund, with specific thematic areas. Different technology readiness levels (TRL) are covered throughout its programmes:  
  • European Innovation Ecosystems (EIE): supports the creation of better-connected innovation ecosystems across Europe, at both national and regional levels.  
  • European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT): brings together business, education and research organisations. 
    
• Widening Participation & Strengthening the European Research Area (ERA): composed of two initiatives:
  • Widening participation and spreading excellence: aims to enhance research and innovation capabilities in countries that are currently falling behind according to the European Research Area policy goals.  
  • Reforming and enhancing the European R&I system: focuses on training researchers for successful R&I participation while prioritising networking, gender equality, ethics and integrity. 

A look at carbon removal in Horizon Europe

Horizon Europe’s work programmes benefit a wide range of topics and technologies, especially in the six clusters of Pillar II. A close look at these programmes shows Horizon Europe has committed funding to CDR–related topics (directly and indirectly, including calls with a high potential for spillovers), with the majority being clustered in three areas ( 8 – Climate, Energy and Mobility; 9 – Food, Bioeconomy, Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment; and 12 – Missions) in both the 2021-2022 and 2023-2024 work programmes.  

The number of calls indirectly related to carbon removals found in both periods, – ranging from CCS and CO2 infrastructure projects to digital solutions and Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) – is higher than those with a direct link to CDR, such as blue carbon, carbon sequestration and BECCS projects.  For context, the funding allocated directly to CDR projects amounted to about 1.1% of the total budget for 2021-2022 and 0.9% of the 2023-2024 total budget. Direct and indirect funding for CDR reached 2.6% of the total 2023-2024 budget, instead of the 1.78% for 2021-2022.  

Research & Innovation actions (RIA) are dominant for the first period, while both RIA and Innovation Actions (IA) lead within the latest work programme, although RIA are slightly more present (65.73% of all projects) in direct CDR funding. RIA projects have 100% of costs covered by the EU and are directed to new knowledge and exploration of technologies. IA projects are covered until 70% of costs and focus more on prototyping, testing, piloting, and large-scale product validation, and marker replication.  

Knowledge and targeted funding

A number of projects in Horizon Europe can provide simultaneous benefits to Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), Carbon Capture and Utilisation (CCU), and Carbon Removal (CDR). While there are sometimes overlaps between these families of methods – for example, shared CO2 transport and storage infrastructure – CDR is a much broader field and a set of methods on its own. The main work programme for 2023-2024, especially in Cluster 6, features more explicit mentions of carbon removals in the expected outcomes or scopes of the topics. However, the calls do not solely focus on CDR in most cases and are more likely to produce spillover effects that benefit CDR, such as providing CO2 transport infrastructure.  

It is a positive step that the Commission has progressively included mentions of CDR within Horizon’s work programmes. To ensure that Horizon Europe delivers the appropriate support for CDR solutions going forward, a more sophisticated approach must be introduced that differentiates between CCUS and CDR methods, providing dedicated funding for different types of CDR as part of a portfolio approach. 

Means in line with targets

There is substantial support for different types of removals given CDR’s status as a nascent field. Despite this support, the amount currently allocated to research into carbon removals is not nearly enough to meet the needs for accelerated development and deployment of CDR in light of the EU climate goals and the ambition for the EU to take the lead in this space globally. To deliver on these goals, the EU must commit to a significantly expanded budget for carbon removal, in line with the goals set out for the Green Deal, such as 310 MtCO2e of removals from the LULUCF sector, 55% emissions reductions by 2030, and climate neutrality by 2050.  

Diverse and precise support

Horizon Europe strategic plans guide the direction of the investments in research and innovation. Ahead of the next iteration, the Strategic Plan 2025-2027 analysis looks at changes in EU policy and how the global context has changed since the first Plan (2021-2024), to determine if adjustments in terms of priority, directions and actions need to be made for this period. The analysis states that significant research is needed to bring down the cost of nature-based and industrial removals, and further identifies areas where the current efforts need to be reinforced, for example:  

1. Sustainable economic models that incorporate ways to measure and incentivise the co-benefits of carbon removal; 
2. Addressing challenges in soil, water, nutrient and biodiversity through e.g, carbon removal; 
3. The removal potential of bio-based economies and bio-based value chains; 

Beyond these suggestions, directing calls for projects based on a diverse portfolio of CDR methods will be necessary to help the industry bridge the research and innovation gap and ensure the maturity of all removal technologies. This approach requires that Horizon Europe ensure there are sufficient calls for all levels of maturity (TRL levels) and types of actions (Research & Innovation, Innovation and Coordination & Support Actions), since carbon removal requires both early-stage research capacity and support for deployment. 

While the CBAM does not include CDR explicitly yet, there are a strong rationale for including it and several different ways it could be included.  

 The CBAM is intended to mirror the conditions that European Economic Zone actors experience when they emit carbon and fall subject to the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS). Assuming the EU-ETS includes permanent CDR within its scope to enable participants to reduce net emissions in 2030 at the earliest, a case can be made to integrate removals in the CBAM to make the two mechanisms work under the same rules. This would require clear rules on MRV mechanisms, with removals limited to hard-to-abate sectors. The CBAM could integrate CDR within its scope first, as it gradually phases in starting 2026.   

CDR could be included either directly or indirectly within the CBAM: 

1. By authorising importers to buy durable removals to compensate a share of the embedded emissions and reduce their CBAM obligations. A clear mention of this measure could be made in Article 7. This addition could be done in accordance with the forthcoming CRCF by clearly specifying that only permanent removals are allowed. 
2. By recognising CDR as a way to reduce a product’s overall embedded emissions, therefore reducing the product’s net-direct emissions. For example, a steel-making factory in a non-European country could buy durable CDR credits in its country of operations to reduce the product’s emissions. 

The revenues generated by the CBAM will go to the general EU budget. Since the CBAM covers many hard-to-abate sectors that will likely continue generating GHG emissions in the long term, it could be argued that some of the revenues generated by the CBAM could be used to incentivise/support CDR development/deployment. A share of the revenues could be used to finance the Innovation Fund.  

Including CDR within the CBAM does come with some risks. Among others, it could enable greenwashing and disincentivise decarbonisation along value chains. While the CBAM itself might not contain the tools needed to tackle these two risks, other EU legislations could help address these risks. Greenwashing will likely be prevented by the Green Claims Directive, whilst the EU-ETS incentivises European companies to reduce their emissions.  

Whether CDR could be used to circumvent the CBAM or not should be clearly defined, and if yes, clear eligibility criteria should be created and agreed upon. Effectively, only high-quality removals should qualify, and priority should be given to reducing embedded emissions in the first place. EU policymakers still need to discuss and agree on the methodologies related to embedded emissions accounting, which could provide some opportunities to promote a stringent and robust approach to CDR under the CBAM. For example, indirect emissions could be reduced or even negated if BECCS is allowed in the methodology. 

CBAM in perspective 

The CBAM is not only considered an essential tool to achieve the EU’s climate objectives but also serves to ensure the EU’s industrial competitiveness with the rest of the world. However, while it puts European production on a level-playing field with imported products, European exports are currently still at a disadvantage. How this issue is tackled remains to be seen, as carbon leakage could still occur if a company shifts its share of European production going to the rest of the world outside of the EU.  

Other geographies are also engaging with similar ideas. The United Kingdom is currently going through a public consultation as to whether it should introduce a CBAM. Interestingly, one of the questions asked pertains to whether carbon credits should be used to offset emissions. The United States is currently reviewing the “Clean Competition Act”, which would create a CBAM for the USA. California has already put in place a system similar to the CBAM regarding electricity imports in some situations, and Canada is considering adopting a border carbon adjustment mechanism. 

National Strategic Plans and support mechanisms  

Within the CAP 2023-2027, CAP National strategic plans operationalise the CAP’s policy objectives at the national level.  

The CAP amounts to 20% of the total EU budget and plays an enormous role in the EU’s intervention in the land sector. It provides different support mechanisms:  

• income support through direct payments, among others, to incentivise environmentally friendly practices; 
• market measures to deal with difficult market situations; 
• rural development measures (national and regional programmes to address specific needs and challenges). 

Each member state has relative freedom to distribute funding across these three types of support mechanisms and can freely allocate up to 25% of its budget between income support and rural development. The CAP Strategic Plans outline this allocation and describe which measures will be supported within each member state. The CAP 2023-2027 puts higher emphasis on tracking outcomes by setting an annual performance report and a biannual review process for national plans, assessing progress towards their goals and the 10 CAP overarching objectives. 

Direct payments use the biggest share of the CAP funding and are conditional to Good Agricultural and Environmental Practices (GAEC), which include measures on maintaining a minimum soil cover, limiting erosion and maintaining soil organic matter, and requiring farmers to save at least 3% of their arable farmland for non-productive areas/features with the possibility to get support to extend it to 7% of the arable land. The new CAP introduces a requirement prohibiting drainage, burning or extraction of peat from peatlands. This prohibition could have a favourable impact on peatlands, allowing them to serve as carbon sinks rather than as sources of carbon emissions.  

While a large share of utilised agricultural area (UAA) is set to be farmed under GAECs, only a limited share is set to be under commitments to reduce emissions or to maintain or enhance carbon storage, which includes permanent grassland, permanent crops with a permanent green cover, agricultural land in wetland and peatland. Moreover, this share varies dramatically between countries, from 0% to 85%. The metrics used in the strategic plans are also not the same; some mention the peak coverage year (note: peak year also varies between countries) while others use the average over the 2023-2027 period. It is quite concerning to see that several states currently have no measures to increase soil carbon storage. Experts have also raised the question of whether the measures proposed are enough to reach the objectives set in the strategic plans. 

Eco-schemes 

Additional subsidies in the form of eco-schemes can be made available to states as a reward for more environmentally friendly practices. Eco-schemes support various types of voluntary actions that go beyond the CAP’s obligation of conditionality. These include practices related to agro-forestry and carbon farming among others. The Commission has published an extensive list of examples. However, it includes only a handful of practices linked to CDR. Member states are not exploiting this opportunity to the fullest, as only a minority of them plan to use eco-schemes in relation to CDR. Some environmental NGOs raised concerns questioning the eco-schemes’ true environmental benefits. 

Carbon farming and related debates 

The recent communication by the EU Commission on “Sustainable Carbon Cycles” has highlighted that the CAP should be one of the primary mechanisms to promote carbon farming at the European level, together with LIFE and Horizon Europe’s “Soil Deal for Europe”. The Commission encouraged states to include measures to incentivise carbon farming in their strategic plans. The current efforts on the Carbon Removal Certification Framework (CRC-F), among others, aim to clarify what good carbon farming practices mean. 

There are, however, several issues related to carbon farming that need to be discussed and tackled with high priority.  

Firstly, carbon farming is a very loaded term. The EU defines it vaguely as “a green business model to reward farmers for adopting practices leading to carbon sequestration”. Therefore, carbon farming as an economic concept and the underlying practices it encompasses should be separated in order to differentiate the business model from the underlying practices.  

Secondly, there is a strong opportunity in the CRCF to make clear that the durability of carbon sequestration in soil is lower than for other CDR methods. Any market-facing claims need to be strictly regulated to ensure that fossil emissions are not compensated for through such practices.  

Thirdly, soil carbon sequestration comes along with many co-benefits besides carbon removal. These include improved soil quality, positive biodiversity impacts and better water retention. These practices should thus be incentivised. However, key questions remain, such as who should pay, and be paid, to implement these practices and what the basis for payment should be. 

Finally, the measuring, reporting and verification (MRV) of soil carbon fluxes is still very much a work in progress. There is currently a trade-off between the accuracy of results and the costs/scalability of methodologies. The EU has yet to determine how best to deploy MRV and at which geographical scale and granularity. The purpose of MRV deployment should be better defined. Furthermore, the commodification of sequestered soil carbon requires more strenuous MRV. 

Separate targets for emissions reductions and removals 

The climate law formally enshrines the objective to increase the EU’s interim 2030 emissions reduction target from 40% to at least 55% compared to 1990 levels. 

When the European Commission first came up with this proposal to step up ambition, moving from 40% gross to 55% net emission reductions, it was criticised for creating a net target that did not differentiate between reductions and removals. Academic voices and campaigners responded by initiating a campaign calling for separate targets, which the European Parliament took on board as part of its own negotiating mandate. Campaigners indeed voiced the fear that an overreliance on carbon removal risked distracting from or delaying action on emissions reduction, leading to the so-called “moral hazard” or “mitigation deterrence” effect. 

The recommendation to account separately for carbon sinks was finally mirrored in the ECL, as the 2030 target included a capped contribution of 225 million tonnes of carbon dioxide removal through natural sinks, linking to the pre-existing commitment made under the LULUCF Regulation. Since then, the LULUCF Regulation has been revised and the nature-based target was increased to 330 million tonnes by 2030, de facto increasing the ambition of the 2030 targets. However, the capped contribution of 225 million tonnes remains.  

No definition of carbon removal nor hard-to-abate emissions 

Despite formally acknowledging the need to balance emissions with removals, the ECL does not introduce a definition of what constitutes carbon dioxide removal. The Law mostly refers to removals as natural sinks, de facto looking at the CDR contribution mainly through the lenses of land use and forestry. 

However, this gap in the definition could be expected to be addressed in the proposal for a carbon removal certification framework, which the ECL mentions in the context of enhancing carbon sinks and supporting carbon farming. 

Finally, the Law acknowledges the role of “removals of greenhouse gases” as a necessary second step to avoiding emissions at source and compensating for residual emissions from “sectors where decarbonisation is the most challenging”, without further elaborating on what constitutes a hard-to-abate emission or sector. Hard to abate emissions should be explicitly defined. 

Some acknowledgements of technology-based solutions 

The role of more engineered forms of removals, including those enabled by carbon capture and storage technology, is not expanded upon in the Law. One reference is however made in the legislation to the “sinks” that will be needed to balance anthropogenic emissions including both “natural and technological solutions.” 

The climate law also includes a recital on the need to promote investment certainty and to introduce policy incentives for technological innovations that can fast-track the transition to a climate-neutral economy, providing an indirect legal hook for the scale-up of CDR solutions. 

Lastly, whilst the quantified contribution of natural sinks is specified in the ECL, no target is given for other forms of removal methods. 

An aspirational, non-binding target for technological solutions was however subsequently proposed as part of the European Commission’s communication on sustainable carbon cycles, which calls for a 5 million tonnes objective by 2030, thereby giving a strong signal to investors and formally recognising the need to increase research and deployment for these types of solutions. 

New Scientific Advisory Body 

The law officially establishes the launch of an independent scientific body to provide unbiased advice on the EU’s climate neutrality pathway and encourages Member States to set up their own entities to do so. 

Interestingly, the ECL specifically mandates the advisory body to provide scientific knowledge on climate modelling and monitoring but also on “promising research and innovation” which contribute to increasing removals, indirectly mandating the advisory body to assess the potential of more emerging types of carbon removal methods. 

Right-sizing the EU carbon budget for the 2040 climate target 

The climate law enshrines the objective for the European Commission to propose an intermediate 2040 climate target within six months of the first global stocktake exercise of the Paris Agreement. For transparency and accountability purposes, the law notes that the European Commission will in parallel publish an indicative greenhouse gas budget for the period spanning 2030-2050 defined as the total net greenhouse gas emissions (expressed as CO2 equivalent and providing separate information on emissions and removals) that are expected to be emitted without compromising the Paris Agreement. The law specifies that here too, the recommendations of the Advisory Board will be solicited and that the Commission will publish the underlying methodology used. 

As one pillar of a larger Green Deal Industrial Plan, the NZIA is meant to strengthen and support the EU’s capacity to reach its climate goals. It ensures Europe seizes the potential to be a world leader in the global net zero industry in the context of strong support for net zero technologies coming from different parts of the world, such as the United States’ IRA.

(Strategic) net zero technologies

The NZIA proposes key developments for net zero technologies. Two main aspects of the definition are particularly relevant: (1) the definition is not technology-neutral, it identifies key areas to be addressed, and further lists a family of eight strategic net-zero technologies, which benefit from even faster permitting, priority status, and in some circumstance of overriding public interest, and (2) net zero technologies must be at least Technology Readiness Level (TRL)  8. CDR is not explicitly listed as a strategic net zero technology, and the TRL 8 requirement would exclude most CDR methods. However, if based on TRL only, some could fall under the definition of ‘innovative net zero technologies’, e.g., some forms of direct air capture are considered TRL 7. This flaw of the proposal could be addressed by co-legislators by adding carbon removal in the definition of net zero technologies and in the related annex.

CO₂ injection capacity target to incentivise CO₂ storage infrastructure

The NZIA proposes a 50 million tonnes per year of CO₂ injection capacity in the EU by 2030. The act rightly identifies the lack of storage capacity as one of the largest bottlenecks for CO₂ capture investments. One of the key aspects of the act is the transparency of CO₂ storage capacity, including the obligation for member states to make publicly available data on sites that can be permitted on their territory, as well as reporting on CO₂ capture projects in progress, and their needs for injection and storage capacity. The NZIA clarifies that CO₂ injection capacity will also be available to accommodate CDR, but provisions are not proposed to ensure the shared CO₂ infrastructure can efficiently be used to accommodate both CCS and CDR methods. A comprehensive and coordinated approach to carbon management that considers both CCS and CDR is needed to ensure that limited CO₂ storage capacity is used effectively to reach the EU’s climate neutrality targets. The target will need to be continuously reassessed to meet the storage needs in the EU, especially beyond 2030. Furthermore, separate provisions to ensure adequate transport infrastructure should be foreseen. The European Commission estimates that about 550 million tonnes of CO2 may need to be captured annually by 2050 to meet the net zero objective.

Oil and gas producers’ responsibility to develop the EU  CO₂ injection capacity has the potential to be a world-leading initiative

The NZIA Article 18 introduces an innovative obligation on oil and gas producers to take responsibility for building EU CO2 storage infrastructure subject to the EU’s injection capacity target. This obligation could introduce an element of producer responsibility for fossil fuel producers in a similar way as producers of packaging, car tires, and other products are required by law to take responsibility for the environmental footprint of end-of-life disposal. If confirmed, this provision would also allow the development of open carbon storage sources by mapping and hosting transparent, open data on carbon storage resources, much of which is held today by private companies. Critical details of this obligation, such as how different sources of CO₂ for storage are prioritised or barred, which entities, beyond oil and gas producers, are required to build the CO₂ infrastructure, and the procedures to determine their location remain open and need further attention.

Fresh funding is needed

The proposal establishes new initiatives, such as the “Net Zero Europe Platform”, that will discuss the financial needs of the net zero strategic projects and could be key in advising how the financing of these projects can be achieved. Beyond this, the NZIA is anchored in already existing funding mechanisms such as Innovation Fund, InvestEU, Horizon Europe, Important Projects of Common European Interest (IPCEI), the Recovery and Resilience Facility, and Cohesion Policy programmes. Clarity on new and additional funding will be key, as bigger goals will require bigger means that can support the variety of CDR methods at different TRL stages.

Aim of the file

The CRCF will be the EU’s first certification framework that focuses exclusively on carbon removals. The stated goal of the file is a certification framework which creates trust in the quality and reliability of certified carbon removals among carbon removal providers, certificate buyers, and the public. The proposed framework also aims to increase transparency in the field of carbon removal certification, by creating public registries and methodologies for a wide variety of carbon removal methods, while also outlining requirements for monitoring, reporting and verification. As a result, interest and willingness to fund carbon removal activities and purchase certificates are expected to increase, leading to an expansion of carbon removal activities by current and potential operators. If adopted by co-legislators, the framework will form the basis of recognising and rewarding land managers, industry, and other carbon removal activity operators for high-quality carbon removals and their contribution to reaching the EU’s climate change mitigation goals.

Meaning for climate goals

By establishing this framework, the European Union works towards reaching its goal of climate neutrality in 2050 and net-negative emissions thereafter, both of which will rely heavily on significantly upscaling carbon removal. As the first legislative file focusing primarily on carbon removals, it also contains a definition of which, in the current proposal, also includes emissions reductions. Furthermore, the proposal does not provide any rules around the potential uses of certificates. Potential uses envisioned by the Commission range from the use of certificates to access funding from policies, such as the CAP, to the use on voluntary carbon markets.

Room for improvement

• Eliminate ambiguity as to what is and is not a removal
  The current definition of carbon removals in the proposal also includes emissions reductions from biogenic carbon pools, and is not aligned with broad scientific consensus (see e.g., IPCC definition). In order to avoid conflation of emissions reductions and removals, and to allow the CRCF to become a global model for carbon removal certification, emissions reductions need to be excluded from the definition.
• Ensure a strict separation between higher-durability and lower-durability removals
  The currently proposed storage categories do not clearly differentiate CDR methods based on their carbon storage durability nor separate biological from geochemical storage media. Separation of these storage media is essential as the need and difficulty of MRV vary significantly between CDR methods based on their storage media.
• Equip the framework to track how carbon removal is used so inappropriate claims can be policed
  The CRCF requires provisions determining permitted uses of carbon removal certificates and certified units, to prevent mitigation deterrence, greenwashing and the erosion of public trust, especially regarding compensation claims for fossil fuel emissions based on lower-durability removal certificates. The current proposal lacks guardrails as to which claims can be made based on the characteristics of generated certificates and the CDR methods used to generate them.

Giving teeth to EU environmental rules

The proposed Nature Restoration Law sits at the intersection between European climate and biodiversity policies, demonstrating the interconnected nature of these crises. If passed, the Law would contribute toward the EU’s delivery of its 2050 climate neutrality target, especially if the range of ecosystems in scope remains as broad and numerous as proposed. Many ecosystems constitute natural carbon sinks; restoring them can help draw down more carbon from the atmosphere and the Law’s legally binding targets will prioritise the restoration of those that have the highest potential to capture and store carbon. According to the Commission, restoring degraded ecosystems such as forests through management and afforestation has the capability to remove approximately 500 Mt CO2e annually by 2050.

In general, this law would add rigor to the EU’s existing environmental law regime. To date, the efficacy of these schemes has suffered from lack of targets, deadlines and procedural clarity. The EU has, so far, failed to meet its voluntary goals (for example, the Convention on Biological Diversity’s voluntary target to restore at least 15% of its degraded ecosystems by 2020 was missed).

Another advantage of the law would be new data sources that will be gathered as part of the national Restoration Plans and reports, such as mapping any agricultural and forest areas that need restoration that would highlight areas of carbon depletion, which may help fill data gaps on terrestrial carbon flows.

Additionality and the CRCF

It is still unclear how the Nature Restoration Law would intersect with the EU Carbon Removal Certification Framework (CRCF). The Commission has proposed that carbon farming through restoration of peatlands and other ecosystems be eligible for certification under CRCF. However, the introduction of the Nature Restoration Law will have implications for the additionality rules in the CRCF, which state that carbon removal activities must exceed standard practices and legal requirements to be certified. By changing legalities and norms governing nature restoration, and by extension terrestrial and aquatic carbon-enhancing practices, the Nature Restoration Law might limit which carbon farming projects can be certified under the CRCF.

Status of the stakeholder debate

There is a strong case for increased ambition for the Nature Restoration Law. Parliament’s rapporteur, MEP César Luena, is advocating for raising the proposed target of restoring 20% of the EU’s land and seas by 2030 to 30% in line with the global decision adopted in December at the COP15 UN Biodiversity Conference in Montreal. Additionally, under the current proposal, the majority of the restoration action is postponed until after 2030; it takes time for the carbon benefits of nature restoration measures to materialise. Hence, policy-makers should bring the timeline forward to ensure these measures contribute to the EU’s net zero and biodiversity goals.

Questions remain as to how much flexibility Member States will have in their implementation of the law. Some are particularly concerned about the impact of this regulation on farmers and foresters and, by extension, European food security and sovereignty (although the perceived trade-off between ecological restoration and EU food security has been challenged). For example, farmers and foresters may be obligated to transition to more sustainable practices, which may result in additional costs. Several voices in the Parliament’s Agriculture Committee argue that the proposed law should better integrate the interests of farmers by excluding agriculture from the scope, or ensuring nature restoration is economically attractive to farmers with new non-CAP financing.

There are similar concerns as to whether the new regulation adequately accounts for the socioeconomic role of forests. The proposed law aims to legally protect all remaining primary and old-growth forests. This stipulation is a particularly contentious issue for Nordic and Baltic countries with large forestry sectors. The European Landowners’ Organisation (ELO) decries the lack of new financing or market-based incentives for forest owners to preserve their land under the new law.

Overall, policymakers should assess the existing EU funding available for nature restoration and what further financial support is needed while also establishing dialogue and coordination with landowners and farmers. For example, the ENVI Committee’s report could require the Commission to reflect on the creation of a dedicated nature restoration fund. Policymakers should also not overlook the  potential for new green jobs to be created as a result of the regulation.

A more ambitious regulation

The LULUCF Regulation was amended to include the EU’s revised 2030 climate target to reduce GHG emissions by 55% below 1990 levels, which acknowledged the need to enhance the EU’s carbon sink. The revision was proposed as part of the ‘Fit for 55 package’ (together with the EU emissions Trading System and the Effort Sharing Regulation).

The key objectives for the revision were:

• reversing the current trend of declining removals in the land sector and delivering, by 2030, 310 Mt CO₂e removals from the LULUCF sector;
• a climate-neutral land sector by 2035, combining emissions from agriculture with net removals from LULUCF;
• simplification of reporting requirements for Member States.

The agreement tightens the criteria to assess whether the EU-wide target is being met and consequently if the flexibility mechanism can be used. Member states will be allowed to use the flexibility mechanism up to a fixed limit, provided, among other conditions, that they submit evidence to the Commission following a well-defined methodology.

To ensure delivery, the revised LULUCF includes stricter reporting requirements, improved transparency and a review by 2025. During the period 2026-2029, Member States can be penalised by an additional 8% on their national 2030 target, if the reporting shows insufficient progress towards their national targets.

…that risks not delivering

In 2020, the EU LULUCF sector removed 230 Mt CO₂e from the atmosphere. However, carbon sinks have been declining in almost every Member State. Based on projections, current measures will not be sufficient to reverse this trend. By implementing the additional measures planned by Member States, the EU’s carbon sink would increase between 2021 and 2040, but by only by 3%. This would mean 209 Mt CO₂e by 2030, missing the proposed target of 310 Mt CO₂e. If the EU is to achieve the LULUCF goal, more ambitious removal measures are needed from Member States, along with further emissions reductions.

Coverage

The Regulation is comprehensive in scope – it covers all land use, land use change, and forestry activities, ensuring that emissions and removals from these sectors are accurately accounted for in the EU’s overall emissions reduction target. Overall, however, the scope for emissions reductions is limited– LULUCF activities account for a relatively small share of the EU’s total greenhouse gas emissions (equal to 7% of the EU’s annual GHG emissions).

The proposed revision also extends the scope to cover emissions from biomass used in energy production and ensures these will be recorded and counted towards each Member State’s 2030 climate commitments. This is particularly relevant for bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), which extracts bioenergy from biomass, and captures and stores the carbon. As forest management is the main source of biomass for energy and wood production, the more robust accounting rules and governance for forest management will affect the availability and sustainability of the biomass feedstock for BECCS.

Together with the ETS and LULUCF, the ESR is one of the three central pieces of EU climate legislation, which steer efforts to reduce total greenhouse gas emissions by 55% in 2030 below 1990 levels as outlined in the European Climate Law. All three have been revised to increase ambition and ratchet up the 2030 target through the ‘Fit for 55’ package and negative emissions will potentially be able to play a role in each of them.

A key aspect of the ESR is the flexibilities of countries to reach their targets more efficiently. These flexibilities are intended to decrease a country’s burden, and give the ESR some characteristics of a carbon market:

1.Temporal and international flexibilities:

• Banking: If a country’s GHG emissions are lower than its annual allocation under the ESR, it may use part of its surplus in the following years and until 2030;
• Borrowing: If a country’s GHG emissions are higher than its annual allocation under the ESR, it may borrow from the following year’s allocation (up to 7.5% of the annual allocations from 2021 to 2025 and up to 5% from 2026 to 2030);
• Trading: Countries may buy or sell allocations to meet their annual targets (up to 10% of their annual allocations from 2021 to 2025 and 15% from 2026 to 2030).

2. Sectoral flexibilities:

• ETS and ESR: Nine Member States’ allowances (with national reduction targets above the EU average and their cost-efficient reduction potential, and Malta) may make use of a limited percentage of ETS emissions to reach their ESR reduction targets;
• LULUCF and ESR: Countries may use a constrained number of net carbon removals in the LULUCF sector to meet their emission reduction targets under the ETS.

Under the proposed amendment of the ESR, the total net carbon removals, which may be considered for reaching ESR targets, may not exceed 225 Mt CO₂e across all Member States. Previously the maximum was 280 Mt CO₂e. The quantity of net carbon removal was also determined and limited for each Member State individually. To avoid emission reduction deterrence, the new proposal also foresees additionally capping the use of carbon removals under the ESR in two time periods, the maximum allowance equally split between 2021-2025 and 2026-2030.