💚 Help shape Europe’s 2040 climate targets 💚

🇪🇺 In 2025, Europe will be revisiting its Climate Law, a unique opportunity to show true climate leadership. The EU Commission has been clear in its intention to propose a 90% emission reduction target by 2040. But there is a lot more to it than you’d think.

🎯 The amendment to the Climate Law is our opportunity to embed a separate durable carbon dioxide removal (hashtag#CDR) target to go alongside the existing targets for land use, land use change, and forestry of around 310Mt-400Mt/year.

📈 Why does this matter? Many reasons, but primarily a separate target would A) address mitigation deterrence and B) spur the growth of the CDR industry.

🤓 Under the umbrella of the CO2ol Down Project, Carbon Market Watch has been gathering industry, civil society, and academia to develop a unified and strong vision for this process. The outcome has been four key demands:

1️⃣ Separated Targets for Effective Governance

This includes only permanent removals to counterbalance residual emissions and suggests clarification in EU Climate Law (Article 2) for separate targets for emissions and removals including within the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement.

2️⃣ Compliance-Based Development for Permanent Removals 📜

Focus on the importance of permanence and suggest new articles in EU Climate Law which distinguishes the roles for biogeneic sequestration by natural sinks vs permanent removals.

3️⃣ Portfolio Approach to Mitigate Risks and Ensure Scalability 💼

Advocating for diverse methods for permanent removals to manage and distribute risk as well as ensuring the inclusion of future technologies for a comprehensive strategy for climate action.

4️⃣ Protect and Enhance Natural Carbon Sequestration 🌲

Recommend natural ecosystems should be protected, restored, and enhanced by member states to grow biogenic sequestration capacity annually while recognising the temporary nature of biogenic carbon sinks.

📅 And the best bit? They are now holding a free, hybrid workshop on December 3rd which you can all attend to learn the latest and participate. Sign up today: https://lnkd.in/dmRzzhTD

👉 Also make sure to check out the project’s excellent website, which has plenty of background information for those newer to the topic and keen to get onboarded: https://lnkd.in/dcizfC7K

⚠️ I highly recommend getting your teeth into this. It might just be the most important advocacy focus of 2025 in Europe. And it won’t be easy: the economic and political climate in Europe is not really conducive to ambitious climate policy. One more reason to get involved and do our part to make this vision a reality.

📣 Big shout-out to the team at @carbon markets watch, particularly Wijnand Stoefs and Fabiola De Simone for relentlessly pushing this project forward.

👋 See you at the workshop!

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