Responding to the provisional political agreement between the European Council and European Parliament on the Carbon Removals Certification Framework (CRCF), the European Suppliers of Waste-to-Energy Technology (ESWET) welcome the agreement as "an essential step in decarbonizing industry and achieving Europe’s climate targets."
With the Commission’s proposed target of capturing 50 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year by 2030, there is an urgent need for incentivizing the removal 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 in 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 (WtE).
Alignment of the definition of carbon removals with the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) means certainty for investors and emitters and helps to harmonize a framework that will develop an international market for carbon removals.
According to ESWET, carbon capture technology is at the stage where it can make a serious impact on CO₂ reduction – all that is needed is a policy framework that facilitates and expedites its development.
With this and other recent developments such as the Net Zero Industry Act (NZIA) and Industrial Carbon Management Strategy, we commend the EU for taking the initiative in decarbonizing 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 Emissions Trading System (ETS) in a manner that provides incentives for industries to remove carbon and accelerates Europe’s path to net zero, the statement said.
