Changing the Path of Climate Change. Voluntary Certification for Carbon Removals in European Union: The Case of Forestry Projects

Abstract

Climate change and environmental degradation are the crisis generators today and, in the years, to come as they threaten our social, economic and political order in Europe and worldwide. In this context, European Union committed to reaching climate neutrality by 2050 as the member states have agreed on a European Green Deal, and the European Commission has adopted several proposals for reducing net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by 2030. Nevertheless, achieving no net emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050 requires high investments in the decarbonisation of the economy and in developing ways to remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere for the residual emissions that cannot be eliminated.

In this paper, I will focus on the EU’s strategy for carbon removal, especially on carbon farming, where carbon can be naturally captured in the soil or forests. Since the signing of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, when an offsetting carbon mechanism was also created for the Voluntary Carbon Market (VCM), many projects based on different carbon crediting schemes were created worldwide. However, there needs to be more presence of European projects on voluntary carbon markets and the EU prepares legislation for its certification scheme. In this context, I will try to figure out the main challenges of VCM in Europe and answer the following research question: “why European Union is trying to boost its voluntary market through specific legislation?”. Moreover, my examples will focus on forestry projects as naturebased solutions are the cheapest way to remove and store carbon.