In a Nutshell

• Substantial contributions from carbon removals are needed for Cyprus to reach climate neutrality, according to current scenarios. However, the country has not yet set any CDR target.
• Cyprus does not have a national climate law but does allow geological CO₂ storage.
• Cyprus aims to develop an incentive scheme equivalent to the EU’s CRCF to increase removals from land use.
• The country’s implementation of carbon removals focuses on re- and afforestation as well as carbon sequestration through ecosystem restoration.

Role for carbon removal in national climate policy

Cyprus does not have quantified carbon dioxide removal (CDR) .

The country’s final National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP)  focuses largely on re- and afforestation through its Plant for Climate initiative launched in 2019, its implementation of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), and the provisions of Cyprus’ Second National Adaptation Strategy which also plans wetland, soil, and forest protection and restoration measures explicitly to enhance carbon sequestration. To deliver on its 2030 LULUCF obligations, Cyprus intends to develop a National Carbon Register and an accreditation scheme with methodologies equivalent to the EU’s CRCF.

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Relevant legal frameworks

Cyprus has not developed a standalone climate law. It is therefore subject to the climate neutrality objective set in the EU Climate Law.

The legislative framework on geological CO₂ storage is built around the Law on the Storage of Carbon Dioxide in Geological Formations of 2012 and its 2015 amendment. This law builds upon the EU CCS Directive and allows the geological storage of CO₂ within the country’s national borders.

Internationally, Cyprus is party to the London Convention but not to the London Protocol, meaning that to export its CO₂ to other countries for under-seabed CO₂ geological storage it must prove its compliance with standards set under the London Protocol.

Support for R&D and Innovation

As per the sixth list of Projects of Common Interest, Project Prinos will be connected to Cyprus either through a shipping lane or a pipeline. Under this project, a CO₂ geological storage location will be constructed under the Aegean Sea.

In the draft updated NECP, one of the four additional measures in the decarbonisation dimension is an “incentive scheme to increase removals from land use”. The key aim is to plant trees, starting with 70,000 annually in 2020 to 300,000 in 2030.

On the horizon

The national CCS plan, National Carbon Register and accreditation scheme for carbon removals still need to be developed.