To ensure environmental and consumer protection, stakeholders need to measure, validate, and certify carbon removals. Presently, there is a lack of common rules and standards on accounting, and monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV), and the definition of carbon removals. Creating an effective certification framework can ensure that only high-quality and reliable CDR is credited. This is a first step toward helping the EU and other jurisdictions recognise and reward CDR without hampering decarbonisation, thereby aiding in the scale-up of carbon removals. Read our factsheet to learn more. Key takeaways To…

Carbon capture and storage (CCS), carbon capture and utilisation (CCU), and carbon dioxide removal (CDR) will all need to play a role in the mitigation of climate change, yet differ in origin and destination of captured carbon, and therefore also in their impact on net greenhouse gas emission balances. To ensure effective action on climate change, it is essential to distinguish the different roles these so-called ‘carbon management’ options can and cannot play in climate change mitigation, to inform the use of the most appropriate tool in different contexts.

Carbon removal certificates can be used in several contexts, from offsetting, which requires the quantification of carbon removed to balance the equivalent quantity of greenhouse gas emissions, to uses that do not include compensation claims or the exact measurement of carbon quantities removed. It is crucial to consider the variety of certification use cases, in order to determine the best use of carbon removal certificates given specific contexts and objectives.