🔥 Hot Brussels insights: where is EU CDR policy heading? 🔥

🇪🇺 What a week it’s been for climate in Europe! Just wrapped up a few days of meetings across European institutions. My key takeaways:

👎 European climate ambition is weakening

The big picture is not looking good. CEOs of Europe’s biggest companies are calling Ursula von der Leyen on a weekly basis, urging her to walk back on climate policy to keep European industry “competitive”. The result? The heart of European decarbonisation, our Emission Trading System (ETS), is shaking, a huge reason for concern.

😍 Carbon removal is getting a legal mandate

CDR is explicitly mentioned as a key tool to achieve the 2040 target. This is huge! Until now, durable CDR was nowhere to be seen in high level European climate policy (e.g. 2030/50 targets). It will be wind in the sails for all other efforts to help scale CDR.

🌎 International credits will dominate the discussion

Whether we end up with 3%, 5% or even more (very likely), we are talking >1Gt of international credits in the 2030s These are mind-boggling amounts. It can go one of two ways: the biggest offsetting scandal we have ever seen, or a win-win which could lower the cost of achieving our 2040 target while doing a lot of good in the Global South. Now is the time to start pushing for removals only!

💶 The time for public procurement has come

Looking at the next few years, Europe will likely need a lot of procurement of CDR: short-term, a pilot of CRCF credit procurement is planned. Medium-term, potential procurement for the ETS. And long-term, procurement of international credits. I was excited to hear about all the great thinking already going into planning and executing this.

👀 All eyes on CDR ETS integration. It will happen

The political will is clearly there. Everyone seems to be banking on the July 2026 proposal. While important, remember that it won’t be until 2027/2028 that we will have a final decision, and the start date will likely be 2031. The focus now: let’s make sure this integration remains tech-open and leverages all permanent CRCF removals, not just a subset.

👉 So where does that leave us overall? Honestly, it’s pretty depressing to work on climate right now. Anywhere, including the EU. Having said that, I actually see a lot of momentum and great things ahead for CDR in Europe: CRCF, ETS integration, procurement, international credits. No time to rest: we got our work cut out for us.

🇪🇺 For those who need a refresher or are missing context, make sure to sign up to my free “Decode EU CDR Policy” email course: https://lnkd.in/dfEZPd2x

⁉️ What is your take? Does this resonate or not? Bright or dark days ahead for CDR in Europe?

🙏 Huge shout out to the Negative Emissions Platform team for organising this wonderful visit: Chris, Atilla, Donagh, and Lambrini.

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