Doubling down on its global climate leadership, the European Union (EU) is pioneering a certification mechanism for carbon dioxide removals (CDR). While policymakers must continue to focus on rapid, near-term reduction of emissions, it has become abundantly clear that the world will need to draw large amounts of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere through CDR.

Eadbhard Pernot

Kathy Fallon

Lee Beck

Eve Tamme

Doubling down on its global climate leadership, the European Union (EU) is pioneering a certification mechanism for carbon dioxide removals (CDR). While policymakers must continue to focus on rapid, near-term reduction of emissions, it has become abundantly clear that the world will need to draw large amounts of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere through CDR. While several EU Member States have already begun developing policies to support CDR, gaps remain at the EU level. With the forthcoming certification mechanism, the EU has the unique opportunity to safeguard CDR’s climate value by setting a global standard for other countries to follow.

The latest report from Working Group III of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirms CDR is 

. In fact, even if the world succeeds at dramatically cutting emissions in the near-term, we are still expected to need hundreds of gigatonnes of CDR cumulatively by the end of the century. The IPCC highlights that CDR can help reduce net emissions in the near-term, counterbalance residual emissions, and achieve and sustain net-negative emissions in the long-term.

But for CDR to fulfill these roles in climate mitigation, it must be rigorously measured, well-governed, and scaled-up through dedicated incentive regimes. Currently, there are no widely accepted standards for CDR certification and existing informal rules are driven by private initiatives. The absence of regulation creates substantial risks for the environment and for consumer protection, as many CO2 removal claims often lack methodological or technical transparency as well as comparability. Furthermore, regulatory intervention is needed to safeguard the climate benefits of scaling permanent CDR. By introducing much-needed clarity, the EU’s certification mechanism is poised to lay the foundation for responsible CDR deployment in Europe as part of the bloc’s path to climate neutrality. A rigorous certification mechanism would provide a strong signal of political support and would bolster public trust that CDR provides reliable climate benefits. Thus, the upcoming EU legislation should ensure that carbon removals certified under this mechanism are real, measurable, additional, permanent, do not result in leakage, and avoid double counting. 

Carbon removal certification also presents an excellent opportunity for the EU to break the conventional 

fault lines between natural vs. technological CDR methods

. This unhelpful dichotomy has not only failed to provide clarity on the quality of removals, but also distracts from the issue of permanence, creates confusion via various interpretations and divides stakeholders. The best way forward would be to emulate the IPCC’s approach and clearly categorize and certify CDR methods based on the removal process (e.g., land-based, ocean-based, geochemical, or chemical) and estimated timescale of carbon storage (e.g., decades to centuries, centuries to millennia, beyond ten thousand years). Carbon removal options shouldn’t be a question of picking favored technologies, but a question of the permanent removal of harmful emissions from our atmosphere.

A rigorous certification mechanism would also enable the incentivization of a substantial scaling-up of CDR methods in the EU to help achieve climate neutrality by 2050. Requiring robust monitoring, reporting, and verification as well as public disclosure of credits used in voluntary and compliance markets can help to avoid double-counting, thereby further building public trust and climate benefit alike.

The certification mechanism is also expected to guide the voluntary carbon market in the private sector. The role of the private sector in advancing CDR is growing, and the collaboration between the public and private sector will determine the success of the certification mechanism. It is therefore crucial to provide stakeholders with a clear indication of how the certification mechanism will apply to voluntary and compliance markets, and how this will evolve over the next decades.

CDR represents an essential suite of options for helping to address the climate crisis. If CDR is to fulfill its climate value, it must be stringently regulated with global standards to ensure quality and permanence. As it pioneers the CDR certification mechanism over the months ahead, the European Commission has an unparalleled responsibility to adopt the highest environmental standards, so that it can further bolster the EU’s credibility as a climate leader and provide a global gold standard for CDR certification.

The upcoming EU legislation should ensure that carbon removals certified under this mechanism are real, measurable, additional, permanent, do not result in leakage, and avoid double counting.

The EU should establish clear institutional roles to oversee and implement the certification framework, ensuring robust governance and compliance.

The EU should establish advisory boards at the EU-level to ensure harmony across the bloc and high standards of the certification mechanism. These could include a scientific advisory board to achieve excellence with regards to scientific evidence and rigor; and an advisory board consisting of market participants as well as other civil society stakeholders to inform the evolution of the certification mechanism.

The EU should provide stakeholders with a clear indication on how the certification mechanism will feed into the voluntary and compliance markets, and how this is expected to evolve over the next decades.

In establishing the certification mechanism, it is essential that the Commission ensure the mechanism includes only methods which adhere to basic minimum principles for CDR.

The principles guiding Carbon Dioxide Removal Certification are:

 – CO2 is removed from the atmosphere and durably stored. 

 – The removed CO2 is quantified via robust monitoring, reporting and verification rules. 

 – Where the durability of CO2 storage is not long-term (beyond 1000 years), legal and financial mechanisms ensure the permanence of CO2 storage in perpetuity. 

 – CDR activities are additional to those required by existing policies and regulations. For example, these activities will not occur in the absence of financing from selling carbon credits, where such financing is used. 

 Removal activities do not cause emissions at other geographical locations due to market changes or other shifts. A robust consequential life cycle assessment with cradle-to-grave system boundaries is required to ensure this. The potential for physical leakage from CO2 storage sites is addressed via legal and financial mechanisms. 

 – Certificates for removals for the same activity are not issued, used or claimed by more than one entity. This is highly relevant given that the certification for carbon removals is expected to leverage voluntary carbon markets, and that carbon removals are also considered to be integrated into the EU regulatory and compliance frameworks. 

 – Negative externalities which can stem from both social and environmental implications of CDR are addressed through strict regulation to ensure that CDR projects result in no net-harm to the environment and people.

. Energy Voices is a democratic space presenting the thoughts and opinions of leading Energy & Sustainability writers, their opinions do not necessarily represent those of illuminem.

EU pioneers carbon removals certification: Key recommendations and principles

How can we get carbon removal technologies to Gigaton scale, so it is available as a decarbonisation option? History has taught us that scaling technologies takes decades – time we do not have as the clock is ticking while the climate crisis rages. We need to get the policy framework right today, and there are two significant gaps to fill: commercialization and accounting.


, the largest direct air capture and storage facility to date, recently commenced operations in Iceland and is expected to suck some 4000 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) out of the atmosphere annually. With increasing climate ambition and the new climate neutrality target, the role of technological carbon removal is emerging as one of the critical points of debate in the European Union. On the one hand, it is evident from mid-century net-zero pathways that steep and transformational emission reductions must be prioritised over carbon removals. On the other hand, it is also becoming clear that 

carbon removal technologies will likely be needed

 to balance out residual emissions and reduce the stock of CO2 already in the atmosphere. This begs the question – how can we get this technology to Gigaton scale, so it is available as a decarbonisation option? History has taught us that scaling technologies takes decades – time we do not have as the clock is ticking while the climate crisis rages. We need to get the policy framework right today, and there are two significant gaps to fill: 

The EU is already a climate leader and policy pioneer. However, the current EU sectoral policies will likely drive investment in advanced decarbonization tech only once technology-specific innovation policy has commercialized them. Considering that it has taken on average more than 20 years for technologies to reach crucial inflection points in deployment, we do not have time to test current, widely adopted decarbonisation technologies as the main mitigation strategies 

 deploying technologies that are not commercially available. 

 and our emissions reduction timelines shortened, carbon removal technologies will also need to be available sooner. Having multiple available technology options also increases our chances for success and provides countries and regions with the opportunity to design decarbonization technology portfolios tailored to their social, economic and resource circumstances. Hence, it’s time for Europe to embrace an innovation-forward approach to climate.

Regarding carbon removal, addressing the accounting gap is critical to demonstrate that actual CO2 is removed from the atmosphere. It is also crucial to include carbon removal in the accounting frameworks tracking the climate targets. Incentive mechanisms can only be designed for quantifiable carbon removal approaches. This goes for carbon removal in general and, more specifically, in the context of technological carbon removal approaches like direct air capture and storage, which the current sectoral climate policies in the EU do not cover.

The commercialization gap is the gap between a few demonstration projects and at-scale deployment with technologies able to be deployed by climate policy, such as the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) alone. Currently, EU policy only aims to enable a few demonstration projects and is not fit to commercialise carbon removal technologies.

The European Commission will propose a regulatory framework for carbon removal certification next year. This initiative will likely help to address the current accounting cap. The European Commission communication on 

, expected in a few months, will “identify key elements to build a robust and credible framework allowing for authentic, transparent and verifiable carbon removals to be certified”. Preparation of carbon removal certification faces a two-fold challenge: On the one hand, the certification framework should meaningfully incentivise the deployment of carbon removal approaches, while on the other, also support the notion of prioritising emission reductions over removals, especially in the decades leading up to climate neutrality. Developing robust accounting rules to design such policies for incentivising carbon removal will facilitate commercialising carbon removal technologies.

A policy that can fill the commercialisation gap must enable 

 such as cost reductions, access to affordable financing, the build-out of 

, and shorter deployment timelines. Cost reductions are necessary to enable more effective deployment at a lower price.

Eventually, this would allow comprehensive climate policy such as carbon pricing to be the sole driver of technology deployment. Lower cost through deployment and learning-by-doing would also de-risk the technologies and attract more investors, enabling more affordable capital to flow into carbon removal. Access to existing infrastructure such as CO2 transport and storage would make building additional carbon removal facilities much easier. Luckily, p

olicymakers are already working towards including CO2 storage and transport modalities

 in the TEN-E regulation. While additional investments in CO2 infrastructure will be needed, tools like carbon contracts for difference as deployment mechanisms, and capital investment support, such as the EU Innovation Fund, can help fill the commercialization gap. 

​​While policymakers flesh out how to fill the commercialization gap, other mechanisms – including California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard CCS Protocol could help with project economics to accelerate the deployment of carbon removal technologies in Europe.

Climate policy must be designed with the goalposts in mind. Drawing up innovation policy today would bolster the EU’s position as a climate leader; by enabling early investment in climate tech and thereby progressing commercialisation and lowering the cost of these technologies, EU policy can support global access to carbon removal technologies in the long term.

Energy Voices is a democratic space presenting the thoughts and opinions of leading Energy & Sustainability writers, their opinions do not necessarily represent those of illuminem.

Why Europe needs a climate-forward innovation policy

’s International Director for Carbon Capture where she leads strategy, program, and team, which is represented in the US, Europe, and the Middle East.

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