Garden with regenerative agriculture, which improves soil carbon retention, on the Les Planeses farm, in Girona. Massimiliano Minocri
This Tuesday, the European Parliament and the Council (the Member States) reached a provisional agreement – still to be ratified by both parties – for the creation of the first voluntary certification framework at EU level for carbon removal.
With this measure, Brussels hopes to promote innovative carbon absorption technologies, which it considers key to the new intermediate objectives of 2040 before reaching climate neutrality by mid-century.
The initiative also seeks to encourage carbon sequestration in agricultural soils, for which it plans to reward those farmers who carry out practices that “lead to an overall improvement in the carbon balance in the soil.”
The new regulation aims to end greenwashing
and
create new business opportunities.
“The agreement will make the EU a global leader in carbon removal, will promote private investment and the development of voluntary carbon markets, while respecting climate integrity and avoiding ecological money laundering,” the rapporteur of the European Parliament, the Portuguese Lídia Pereira.
For its part, the Council has highlighted that, once it comes into force, this regulation will be “the first step” towards the introduction of a comprehensive framework for carbon removal and land emissions reduction in European legislation.
“Carbon absorptions and carbon capture in agricultural soils will constitute an important part of our efforts to achieve climate neutrality by 2050,” stressed the Commissioner for Climate Action, Wopke Hoekstra, after learning about the provisional agreement, closed in early Monday to Tuesday.
This pact comes shortly after Hoekstra himself proposed, on behalf of the Commission and at the beginning of the month, the objective of 90% reduction of greenhouse gases by 2040. A goal that will require, according to Brussels, a decisive push of carbon capture and storage technologies, systems to trap generated CO₂ and bury it in the subsoil, or absorb it with natural sinks.
With the new voluntary European certification framework, “we will unlock new economic opportunities for farmers, foresters, builders and innovators,” Hoekstra also highlighted, at a time when agricultural protests have set back part of the European Commission's ambitious environmental policy. which, however, this agreement seeks to promote.
In this regard, the new regulation will unlock, once approved, “innovative” private and public financing, according to Brussels, which will allow carbon-removing farmers “to be rewarded based on certified emissions absorptions and reductions.”
Regenerative agriculture in Girona.
Massimiliano Minocri
To this end, the agreement now reached establishes certification standards for carbon capture in agricultural soils, such as the restoration of forests and soils and the prevention of soil emissions or a “more efficient” use of fertilizers.
In addition, reducing the release of methane from enteric fermentation (a result of cow digestion) or livestock manure management will be included as part of the regulatory review planned for 2026.
It is not a generalized payment to farmers, community sources point out, but rather the measure seeks to reward those who carry out so-called carbon capture agriculture practices to reduce emissions from agricultural soils.
Different cultivation models
This concept includes agroforestry and other forms of mixed agriculture that combine woody vegetation (trees or shrubs) and agricultural or livestock production systems on the same land.
Also the use of catch crops, cover crops, conservation tillage or a greater number of landscape elements—all of them integral elements of regenerative agriculture.
Also considered carbon capture agriculture is the specific conversion of cropland into fallow or set-aside areas into permanent pasture, as well as the restoration of peatlands and wetlands to reduce the oxidation of existing carbon stocks and increase carbon fixation potential. carbon, as the Commission noted in 2021, when it presented a communication on sustainable carbon cycles to improve this business model of carbon capture in agricultural soils.
In the case of certifications for carbon reduction or storage in agricultural activities, these activities must last at least five years before they can be certified.
Furthermore, these activities must not lead to the acquisition of land for speculative purposes that negatively affect rural communities.
Certification standards will also extend to industrial carbon removals, such as bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, or direct carbon capture and storage from the air.
The provisional agreement maintains the requirement that carbon removal activities must meet four general criteria to be certified: quantification, additionality, long-term storage and sustainability.
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