200 NGOs call on EU to cancel CO2 removal certification scheme
Last February, Brussels presented the world’s 1° scheme of CO2 removal certifications
Europe needs real reductions in emissions, not the “greenwashing” of carbon removal. Allowing industry to count in the greenhouse gas balance the CO2 removals from the atmosphere guaranteed by third parties means believing in the “myth” that CDR technologies will be able to “erase the damage“. This is why Brussels must withdraw the Carbon Removal Certification Framework (CRCF), the scheme for CO2 removal certifications.
More than 200 European NGOs, part of the Real Zero Europe campaign, ask for this in an open letter to the EU Parliament published on 8 April. Which targets one of the last acts of the executive led by Ursula von der Leyen, the proposal for a European scheme that allows those who use it, voluntarily, to receive a payment for the CO2 removals certifications.
The CRCF covers not only the sequestration of CO2 from the air but also its (temporary) storage in durable products such as wood or obtained through carbon farming (for example, with the restoration of wetlands). In the latter cases, the certification is provided with a guarantee that the CO2 does not return to the atmosphere before (just) 5 years. On 10 April, the European Parliament will vote on the proposal for the CRCF, the world’s first such instrument.
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“This Wednesday you will have the opportunity to reject the CRCF, and then refuse to support the error that emissions can be “offset” by projects that claim to remove carbon from the atmosphere. This would ensure that EU policies focus on real cuts in emissions rather than greenwashing“, write the 200 associations.
