🇪🇺🤔 What does the EU’s Net Zero Industry Act (#NZIA) mean for carbon dioxide removal (#CDR)? 🇪🇺

As I emphasize time and time again, CDR is a key tool for reaching net zero, or even net negative, emissions. Privately-funded projects can only go so far; it takes concrete policy support to expand the capacity and reach of CDR projects.

The recently updated Net Zero Industry Act is part of the EU’s larger #GreenDeal Industrial Plan that aims to promote investments in the production capacity of products key to meeting the EU’s #climateneutrality goals. This is a key piece of legislation that identifies negative emissions technologies to invest in. However, the Act seems to fall short of supporting CDR, instead focusing its attention solely on carbon capture and storage (#CCS) technologies.

What does the NZIA entail?

💉 The proposal sets a Union-level 2030 objective for an annual injection capacity in CO2 storage of 50Mt CO2. It includes measures to establish a Union single market for CO2 storage services that large-scale CO2 emitters, i.e., hard-to-abate industrial sectors, can rely on to decarbonise operations.

🗣 Countries must share information on areas where CO2 storage sites can be allowed on their land and require companies to share geological data about production sites. They must also provide an annual report about ongoing capture and storage projects.

⛽ The NZIA includes a groundbreaking “producer responsibility” clause that holds #fossilfuel extractors accountable for their environmental impact and requires them to develop an open-source CO2 storage network.

❗ But the current version of the NZIA excludes technologies that generate negative emissions, which is a cause for concern among some stakeholders as permanent CDR technologies are contrastingly set to receive major financial support in the US.

Where does the NZIA fall short for CDR?

🚩 It falls short by not adequately supporting #carbonremovals; it is unclear whether CDR will be considered of strategic importance under the Act, with the focus being #CCS. The CCS category should be expanded to explicitly include CDR as a complete family of net-zero technologies.

Overall, the NZIA is yet another important legislative update reinforcing the EU’s commitment to supporting and investing in decarbonization technologies. Placing responsibility on polluters as well as the 50Mt target are great steps in the right direction.

However, it does seem strange not to focus on CDR in a policy focused - even in its name - on net zero. Hopefully, that will change as CDR continues to prove itself an effective and essential tool for #netzero. Direct air capture (#DAC) and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (#BECCS) seem particularly well placed for the NZIA.

What do you think about the provisions of the NZIA? What CDR-focused perspective would you add to my analysis?