Germany takes a major step towards a comprehensive carbon removal policy

by Associate Research & Policy Analyst, Thibault Aubert

Last week, the German Minister of Economic Affairs Robert Habeck unveiled an outline of the country’s long-term strategy to develop carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and negative emissions. This ambitious strategy acknowledges the role of all types of CDR in securing the country’s net zero objective before 2050 and achieving net negative emissions thereafter.

Key highlights:

• Separate targets. The strategy reaffirms the ambitious removal objectives set in the German LULUCF (land use, land use change and forestry) law (-25Mt by 2030, -35Mt by 2040, -40Mt by 2045), and announces the creation of a dedicated target for technological, high-permanence removals. This announcement is important because it acknowledges the need to develop sinks where high permanence and low reversal risk are guaranteed, in order to achieve a durable net zero.
• Technology-openness and high standards. The strategy outlines an assessment process for all types of CDR that is explicitly open and future-proof, ensuring that both established and emerging methods are regularly reassessed and that all relevant quality criteria are examined (permanence, reversibility, cost, impacts/co-benefits on environment and communities).
• CDR, not CCS. The strategy reaffirms that scaling up CDR doesn’t imply any reduction of the primary effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Building on this distinction, the strategy clearly distinguishes carbon capture and storage (CCS) from CDR, as they provide different climate benefits, while acknowledging the importance of coherently developing CO2 transport & storage infrastructure to benefit both CCS and CDR.
• Beyond net zero. The strategy aims to set a general removal target for 2060, combining all types of CDR, to enshrine Germany’s ambition to become a global provider of net negative emissions in the second half of the century.
• Legal coherence between national and EU frameworks. While the strategy outlines future policy developments at the national level, it acknowledges the importance of creating a symbiosis with EU legislation, starting with the recently agreed Carbon Removal Certification Framework (CRCF), under which specific methodologies for CDR certification will be created; such frameworks may prove instrumental to allow a rapid development of CDR policy in EU member states.
• Financial capacities for CDR scale-up. For CDR to be developed at scale, a massive increase of financial flows is needed. The strategy specifies that a large array of support policies will be considered both nationally and at the European level, while properly assessing the pros and cons of each option (e.g., inclusion into the EU Emissions Trading System and other options).

We are still early in the process, with further guidance expected from Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK). A lot of the strategy’s impact will depend on whether the size of the permanent removal targets is ambitious enough, especially in light of rapidly decreasing natural sinks. There are legitimate doubts on Germany’s ability to deliver on the optimistic LULUCF targets it has already set (especially given that only peatlands alone account for around 50 million tonnes of CO2 equivalents (CO2eq) per year, which is more than 7% of all emissions in Germany).

We call on other EU member states to follow a similar process and develop their own context-specific CDR strategies, while ensuring that the EU clarifies its ambitions for the development of removals as announced in its climate targets for 2040.

Check the strategy here: https://bit.ly/3IscImI