At today’s meeting of the Permanent Representatives Committee (Coreper), Germany, together with the majority of the Member States, reached a provisional agreement on the draft regulation on a voluntary certification framework for carbon removal and carbon farming. The agreement, which has been reached by the Belgian Council Presidency in the trilogue on 19 February, now also has to be formally confirmed by the European Parliament.

State Secretary Sven Giegold said: “The agreement is an important success for the EU in the field of climate action on the path towards greenhouse gas neutrality. In setting this framework, the EU is committing itself to a high and reliable ecological standard for the voluntary and uniform certification of carbon removals. Greenhouse gas reduction must continue to be a priority in climate action. In addition to this, however, the rapid scaling of carbon removal technologies is key in order to achieve the Paris climate targets. The EU certification framework for carbon removal will create uniform and transparent rules for receiving income from certified activities. These can become new sources of income for farmers and forest owners.”

The agreement lays down the so-called cascade principle for the utilisation of biomass and robust rules against the double counting of certificates. When calculating the carbon balance of biomass, emissions across the entire life cycle are taken into account. The strict differentiation between certificates in the Union Registry depending on the respective carbon removal procedure, recurring checks and the mandatory additionality of activities also strengthen the integrity and reliability of the framework. Only certificates with integrity can build confidence among investors. Germany had strongly advocated for this in the negotiations right up to the end.

Certifiable activities include


• permanent carbon removals, e.g. from carbon storage after the combustion of biomass (bioenergy-based carbon capture and storage = BECCS) or carbon sequestration from the air (direct air capture with carbon storage = DACCS) that last for several centuries

• temporary carbon storage, e.g. in long-lasting carbon storage products, that must be proven to last for at least 35 years

• carbon removals and reduction of emissions from soils ("soil emission reductions”), in particular the rewetting of drained peat soils as part of carbon farming must last for at least five years

As is the case with every compromise, Germany also had to make concessions. Although the immediate extension of the scope of application for emission reductions in the livestock sector was prevented, there will be an early review by the European Commission in 2026 as to whether and to what extent the scope of application will be opened up. From the outset, the agreement included individual reduction activities in addition to carbon removal technologies, albeit with comparatively high GHG reduction potential (soil-related emission reductions).

The planned certification framework does not refer to CCS facilities which capture hard-to-abate fossil-fuel emissions from industrial processes, for example. This is not considered a carbon removal, but rather greenhouse gas reduction technologies.

Once the legislative process has been completed (approval by the European Parliament, publication of the legal text), the European Commission will primarily be required to draw up certification methods for the various types of activity and, in particular, monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) regulations, as well as building up the central Union Registry for carbon removal and carbon farming. A group of experts, in which the Member States are also represented, will support the Commission in this work and provide its guidance and advice.