Responsible carbon dioxide removals and the EU’s 2040 climate target

Abstract

No abstract. First para: The European Union (EU) has recently initiated the debate on its 2040 climate targets with the EU Commission’s proposal of a net 90% greenhouse gas emission reduction target relative to 1990 (EC 2024a). The EU Commission’s impact assessment indicates that carbon dioxide removals (CDR) will play an important role in the EU’s climate policy for 2040, on a path to EU’s climate neutrality target in 2050 (EC 2024b). The science behind CDR’s importance is clear: drastic and sustained emission reductions need to be supplemented with carbon dioxide (CO2) removals to meet the Paris Agreement objectives, and to reach the EU’s carbon neutrality target by 2050 (IPCC AR6, ESABCC 2023). The need for CDR in 1.5°C pathways reaching net-zero CO2 by 2050 globally is generally projected to be higher than 10 Gt CO2yr-1 removal in 2050 (Prütz et al. 2023). Despite this, emission reductions need to be prioritized as we cannot guarantee a temperature decline after an overshoot (Schleussner et al. 2023). One way to avoid mitigation deterrence is to create separate targets for emission reductions, permanent CDR, and the land use, land use-change, and forestry (LULUCF) sector for the EU 2040 climate framework (Reiner et al. 2021, NEGEM 2023).