“Full of red flags” – Real Zero Europe campaigners slam EU carbon removal proposal

Over 170 civil society organizations, led by a coalition campaign Real Zero Europe, have slammed the European Commission’s leaked proposal for EU carbon removal, stating it is “full of red flags.”

28th November 2022

Brussels (BE) — The criticism comes just days ahead of the Commission’s expected legislative proposal for a new Carbon Removals Certification Framework, which outlines the EU’s plans for approving new carbon removal (CDR) offsets in Europe. It also follows backlash at COP27 where EU officials were accused of CDR “accounting tricks.”

The proposal has sounded alarms among climate justice and environment campaigners, food, farm, development, and faith-based groups, and experts across Europe and beyond. Over 200 organizations have signed Real Zero Europe’s statement, calling for the EU to “deliver real, deep, emissions cuts now,” instead of generating false confidence in unproven future CDR. They argue the proposal will delay real action and cause governments to miss the rapidly-closing window to keep global temperatures below 1.5 degrees of warming by locking in fossil fuels for decades to come.

Earlier this month the EU faced criticism at the COP27 climate talks for “accounting tricks,” using updated land-based CDR estimates to claim that the bloc had raised its emissions reduction target since COP26.

The proposal promotes fossil-prolonging technofixes such as Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) and Direct Air Carbon Capture and Storage (DACCS), and a controversial initiative called “carbon farming.” Campaigners say there is a very real danger that the EU is shifting the focus away from the essential work of phasing out fossil fuels, instead heading towards speculative technologies and impermanent land sequestration.

After COP27 — where the presence of lobbyists from the fossil fuel industry reached a new peak, watering down the conference’s outcomes — campaigners have warned that fossil fuel companies and big agriculture have had a significantly harmful influence on the Commission’s proposal.

Lucy Cadena, the coordinator of the Real Zero Europe campaign, said:

“This proposal raises red flags for climate, environmental, and farming communities in Europe and beyond. The EU is betting big on unproven removals as part of its strategy to reach ‘net zero’ – but the stakes are way too high. Every ton of future promised carbon removals represents a delay in emissions cuts today, bringing us deeper into climate chaos. COP27 revealed the corporate greenwash of ‘net zero,’ with a fossil fuel phaseout omitted from the final outcome. Now, we are bringing this fight home – we cannot let historical polluters like the EU off the hook. We are demanding a Real Zero approach to climate action, and deep, sustained cuts to carbon emissions in the next short months and years.”

Lili Fuhr, Deputy Director of the Climate & Energy Program at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), said:

“The IPCC has repeatedly warned that it may not be possible to reverse temperature rise if we overshoot 1.5°C degrees of warming. Climate strategies that rely on fossil fuel prolonging technologies like carbon capture and storage and speculative carbon dioxide removal risk pushing the planet past a point of no return. The only certain path to avoid overshoot and prevent irreversible impacts is a rapid fossil phase-out and a fast, just and equitable energy transition. We urgently need the EU to back real climate solutions.”

Read the press release in French, Spanish and Italian.

Read the Real Zero Europe Statement in English, French, Spanish, and Italian.

A full quotes sheet from the Real Zero Europe campaign is available here.

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Notes to editors:

  • The Real Zero Europe campaign is the initiative of a coalition of civil society organizations aiming to expose the corporate greenwash of ‘net zero’ in Europe, resist false solutions, and push for real solutions, real emissions reductions, and Real Zero in Europe
  • At COP27 commissioner Franz Timmermans announced that the EU would cut GHG emissions by 57% (instead of the previously promised 55%) by 2030, although closer inspection revealed that there would be no change to the actual amount of emissions reduced and the 2% ‘extra’ came from revised removals figures.
  • A leaked draft of the Commission’s proposal seen by the Real Zero Europe campaign made alarmingly little reference to fossil fuels or a fossil fuel phase-out, echoing concerns voiced at COP27.
  • A recent report that combined all governments’ climate pledges calculated the amount of land required to fulfill the total planned climate effort to be 1.2 billion hectares, roughly equal to the world’s entire food-producing base. Such an over-reliance on land-intensive removals is exemplified in the Commission’s proposal, which would introduce “carbon farming” to Europe – a scheme to incentivize agricultural and forestry practices that sequester carbon in land sinks.
  • The proposal also signals more support for speculative engineered removals, such as Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) and Direct Air Carbon Capture and Storage (DACCS). However, these technologies – dubbed “fossil prolonging technologies” by campaigners – have never proven to work at scale, are prohibitively costly, polluting, and pose risks to biodiversity, food sovereignty, and human rights.