🇪🇺 Hot off the press: Key takeaways from CRCF Expert Group meeting on permanent carbon dioxide removals (hashtag#CDR) 🇪🇺

👇 Day 1 of the workshop on the EU Carbon Removal and Carbon Farming (hashtag#CRCF) framework focused specifically on permanent CDR just ended. So what did we learn and where are we heading?

🌲 Biomass, biomass, biomass. Probably the biggest discussion topic of the day, given that 2/3 of the initial methodologies rely on it (BECCS/BioCCS & BCR). NGOs pushed hard for biomass sustainability and going beyond the Renewable Energy Directive (hashtag#RED). Industry made it clear there are ways to produce biomass sustainably and its use should be harmonised across CRCF methodologies.

💶 Show me the money! The EU Commission is going to make financing for CDR a priority for 2025. First, they will work on connecting CDR companies better to existing funding, e.g. hashtag#Horizon and the hashtag#InnovationFund. They also plan a dedicated workshop on a public private purchasing programme in Q2 2025. Music to my ears.

👋 The BCR permanence debate is raging (again?!?). Thought it was settled. We are going in circles. Consensus seems tricky given strong, irreconcilable opinions. Particularly the debate around soil monitoring felt unhelpful to say the least: inertinite does not decay. Period.

💚 Other CDR technologies. There will be a workshop in H2 2025 to prioritise what should come next: enhanced weathering (hashtag#EW), ocean/marine CDR, and/or mineralisation. There are legitimate concerns, but we need to find a way to move forward while filling gaps. The climate cannot wait.

🔄 Mix&match? Methodologies were supposed to be modular, allowing different components to be combined with others (e.g. biomass sourcing) to accelerate the development of future methodologies. This is not currently the case, something that can hopefully be improved in future versions.

🔜 So what’s next

- Feedback on the current methodologies can be submitted until November 11th

- The VERTA consultants will submit their final report by the end of 2024

- The CRCF itself has now been translated into all EU languages and can officially be adopted in 2024

- The DACCS, BECCS/BioCCS, and BCR methodologies (delegated acts) will be finished in H1 2025

- The verification and registry methodology (implementing act) will also be finished in 2025

- The first CRCF units should be certified in 2026

- The Union Registry will come online in 2028

🙏 Really appreciated the inputs during the workshop from Harald Bier, Lukas May, Wijnand Stoefs, David Chiaramonti, Codie Rossi, Mark Preston Aragonès, Robert Höglund, and Sylvain Delerce.

👏 And of course a big shout out to Chris Malins for putting all the draft methodologies together, as well as the team at the EU Commission for hosting Christian Holzleitner, Fabien Ramos, and Andrea Klaric.

Follow the conversation