EU science advisers put clamp on carbon credits to meet 2040 climate target

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The EU’s climate advisory board has said the bloc should not use international carbon credits to count towards its climate targets, arguing that it would undermine domestic efforts to cut emissions.

The advice published on Monday recommends that the EU should aim to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 90-95 per cent by 2040 compared with 1990 levels when it presents a climate goal early next month.

“There is no doubt that we have to reduce emissions very significantly, very rapidly,” said Ottmar Edenhofer, chair of the European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change.

But allowing international carbon credits to count towards a 90 per cent goal would constitute a “huge risk”, leading to a “less credible” 2040 target, he said.

The board’s recommendation puts the scientists in direct conflict with the German government, which has said in its coalition agreement it will only support a 90 per cent emissions reduction if it can count international carbon offsets to 3 per cent of that goal.

Carbon credits are financial instruments meant to represent a tonne of carbon dioxide removed from the atmosphere through projects such as growing forests. But some experts and environmentalists have raised concerns that many claimed removals are not credible, and numerous schemes amount to greenwashing.

The support of Germany and France will be decisive in setting the 2040 target. France will only support an ambitious goal if there are “clear support measures” for businesses, such as compensation for indirect costs of polluting, Marc Ferracci, the country’s industry minister, has said.

The politics around climate policy have become polarised as EU governments have complained that many of the bloc’s laws, proposed before the Covid-19 pandemic and the energy crisis following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, are now hampering their economies.

Karol Nawrocki, the right-wing candidate elected president of Poland on Monday, tapped into the resentment as part of his campaign, criticising the bloc’s Green Deal as “eco-craziness” and calling for a referendum on its implementation.

Edenhofer said EU governments should focus on scaling up carbon removal technologies, such as direct air capture and carbon capture and storage, rather than trying to offset emissions by buying credits from abroad. The board recommended that, instead of setting one broad target, the European Commission should set separate, specific targets for emissions cuts and carbon removals.

Despite the pushback the bloc is broadly within its target to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by its interim goal of 55 per cent by 2030 compared with 1990 levels, after succeeding in cutting emissions by 8 per cent last year.

However, the 2040 goal is widely seen as a critical waymarker on the EU’s path to net zero emissions by 2050, enshrined in its climate law. The bloc must next present a 2035 commitment, derived from its 2040 target, to the UN before the COP30 climate conference in November by global agreement.

The US exit from the Paris Agreement under Donald Trump has increased pressure on the EU to maintain its stance on the international stage.

The 2035 submission to the UN — its so-called nationally determined contribution — would “confirm whether Europe stays the course”, said Manon Dufour, head of the climate think-tank E3G’s Brussels office. “Even though the US has pulled out, other partners haven’t and so 2035 is quite critical in that view to show that we respect the process.”

It would also be important in forthcoming meetings with China ahead of an EU-China summit next month, she added. “Having shown an ambitious target will increase leverage to other parties.”