20
Nov
2023
Watch
Union certification framework for carbon removals
Mr President, what we risk doing with this EU certification process for carbon removals is creating a system that actually promotes greenwashing, instead of actually stopping it. I mean, of course, we need to ban offsets – grand – but there is another problem. If we call everything we like a carbon removal and given an EU certificate of approval, then we will end up with a certification process that has absolutely no integrity. I mean, we all want farmers to be rewarded for storing carbon through good agricultural practices. But if we set up a system where we count everything from planting to grazing as a carbon removal activity, well, we are just going to have a junk certification process. So let us certify real carbon removals, like the peatlands rewetting, agroforestry, so that we can promote no-regret, biodiversity-positive solutions. Otherwise we are only fooling ourselves, and we cannot cheat the climate – we are the only losers if we try and do that.