The European Commission differentiates three pathways to achieve climate-resilient and sustainable carbon cycles: decarbonisation, carbon recycling, and carbon removal. Among this last domain, carbon farming (i.e. a set of measures and processes applied by farmers and foresters to enhance the storage of carbon on agricultural land, wetlands, forests or coastal environments) has been put to the front by the Commission as a promising initiative to help achieve the EU’s mitigation goals. Accordingly, the Council recently agreed on a voluntary Certification Framework to promote the implementation of carbon farming projects (together with other carbon removal and storage strategies) among EU farmers and foresters. In this regard, the new Regulation (EU) 2024/3012 seeks to ‘enhance the environmental integrity and transparency [of carbon farming projects] and promote trust in their certification, while reducing the associated administrative costs’.
However, several concerns have been raised regarding the applicability and effectiveness of this framework. Some environmental stakeholders have even stated that the current Regulation runs the risk of becoming a greenwashing mechanism for agricultural and forestry activities. In that light, this blog post will critically analyse the Certification Framework by focusing on the four requirements enshrined within it: quantification, additionality, long-term storage and sustainability. I will first explain, however, the concept of ‘carbon farming’ and list its main benefits and risks.
Carbon farming: concept, benefits and risks
Carbon farming generally refers to the land use and farm practices that can ‘sequester carbon in natural sinks such as vegetation and soil, or abate GHG emissions from agricultural production’ (see Tang et al.). These practices can be divided into five main categories: ‘peatland rewetting and restoration; agroforestry system establishment and maintenance; maintenance and enhancement of soil organic carbon on mineral soils, livestock and manure management; and nutrient management on croplands and grasslands’ (see McDonald et al.).
From an environmental point of view, carbon farming can help mitigate agricultural GHG emissions while delivering biodiversity co-benefits settled under the EU Restoration Regulation (see Thamo et al. and McDonald et al.). Moreover, carbon farming can also ameliorate soil health and fertility through improved soil structures and increased water-holding capacity. This ultimately helps the agricultural industry to better adapt itself (both socially and environmentally) to the changing climate future.
However, carbon farming also comes with some risks. First, soils sequester carbon at a slow rate, and they can only do so until a saturation level is achieved (see West and Six). Moreover, these sequestrations can be significantly difficult to calculate, given the extensive variety of practices and the complexity (and uncertainty) of counting techniques (see Criscuoli et al.). This ultimately limits the chances for reliable monitoring, verification and reporting (MVR) schemes.
Second, carbon farming storage may be more easily ‘released’ to the atmosphere if compared to other storage techniques (see Carsten et al.). This poses significant problems for mitigation effectiveness, but also for accountability reasons: if farmers receive an economic incentive to mitigate their environmental footprint through carbon farming, it may be very complex to monitor whether they continuously comply with their storage obligations. Moreover, if a company purchases soil carbon credits to offset its emissions and markets its products as climate neutral, consumers may be subject to misleading advertisements if the carbon is released in the end (see Carsten et al.). Both scenarios then present relevant liability challenges.
In light of the above, the EU legislature has created a Certificate Framework that seeks to enhance carbon farming techniques while avoiding the legal and environmental risks associated with them. I will now assess whether the final Regulation correctly does so.
The Carbon Removals and Carbon Farming (CRCF) Regulation: a critical analysis
The Carbon Removals and Carbon Farming (CRCF) Regulation seeks to ensure the quality of carbon farming projects by establishing several minimum quality standards (Article 3). In that regard, the Regulation relies on four components (the so-called ‘QU.A.L.ITY criteria’) to ensure that all certified projects effectively achieve a sustainable and long-lasting outcome. On the basis of these four elements, I will now determine whether the Regulation effectively fulfils its objectives.
Quantification (‘QU’)
The first requirement established by the Regulation demands that the GHG emissions produced while implementing the carbon farming project do not surpass the emissions ultimately stored in the natural sink (Article 4). Accordingly, to ensure that this requirement is correctly followed, emissions must be quantified reliably (see Carsten et al.). The Regulation, however, fails to do so in two ways. First, Article 4 does not oblige operators to carry out accurate and continuous on-site measurements. Instead, it relies on the necessity to achieve cost-effective carbon farming projects to determine that operators must only comply (unless ‘duly justified’) with a ‘standardized baseline’ of business-as-usual carbon storage performances (Article 4(8)). A risk of overestimated carbon storage is thus almost inevitable (see Carsten et al.). A possible solution could be to orientate this ‘standardized baseline’ towards ‘Best Available Performances’ of comparable activities.
Second, as stated above, stored emissions’ quantifications are still an immensely complex and costly task for some carbon farming practices (see Cavallin). However, these particularly uncertain practices (such as marine-based activities) have not been excluded from the Regulation’s scope, triggering harsh criticism among scientists. This consequently puts into question the extent to which the Regulation reliably ensures the mitigation of agricultural GHG emissions in the EU.
Additionality (‘A’)
Regarding the second requirement, carbon farming projects must be ‘additional’ to a standardised carbon removal performance baseline (thus going ‘beyond Union and national statutory requirements’), and they must become financially viable thanks to the incentivising effects produced by the certification itself (Article 5). Several problems can be detected in this regard.
First, the additionality requirement is automatically presumed to be met if the operator applies the ‘standardised baseline’ mentioned in the previous section. Consequently, the risks of inaccuracies are also translated into the ‘additionality’ requirement.
Second, even if the baseline could be concretely determined, the additionality requirement still poses a major problem: it risks chilling the sustainable requirements settled under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). If carbon farming projects must go ‘beyond Union and national statutory requirements’, that means that any upward revisions of the CAP’s Good Agricultural and Environmental Land Conditions (GAECs) will reduce the operators’ capacity to comply with the additionality criteria. This could consequently trigger significant clashes among policymakers and stakeholders, who may become reluctant to impose more stringent environmental conditionalities in the future (see Cavallin).
Long-term storage (‘L’)
The third requirement is probably the most controversial. According to Article 6(1), carbon farming projects must ‘[aim] at storing carbon over the long-term’ (emphasis added). This wording, far from ensuring a long-lasting storage of carbon, limits the Regulation’s effectiveness significantly. Instead of establishing a clear and strict obligation of result, the legislative act only obliges operators to demonstrate that their project aims at ensuring the long-term storage of carbon; in practice, ensuring actual long-term storage is thus apparently not required (see Günther et al.). If we consider that, as stated above, carbon farming has a higher risk of carbon ‘releases’, the accomplishment of effective mitigation outcomes is severely put at risk through the current Certification Framework.
The Regulation still puts in place, however, two relevant safeguards. First, Article 2(10) requires carbon farming projects to operate for at least five years. This minimum time frame, not initially included in the Commission’s original proposal, intends to ensure that temporary carbon storages last long enough for them to have an overall positive impact on mitigating climate change (see Leifeld and Keel). However, despite this provision, some experts remain sceptical about non-permanent carbon storage practices (see Carsten et al.). They argue that carbon farming involves too many uncertainties to reliably achieve meaningful mitigation outcomes (see Günther et al.). As a result, these experts advocate for excluding carbon farming practices from the Regulation’s scope altogether.
Second, Article 6(2) requires carbon farming operators to monitor and reduce the risk of stored carbon being released during the monitoring period. It also mandates that operators be subject to ‘appropriate liability mechanisms’ to address any potential carbon releases. These provisions aim to address the liability challenges discussed earlier by explicitly acknowledging the likelihood and risks associated with unexpected carbon (farming) releases. However, the Regulation does not yet provide an actual solution. Instead of creating specific liability mechanisms, the legislation defers this task to a future delegated act to be developed by the Commission. This delay, along with the generally vague wording of the provision, has raised concerns among some legal scholars about whether the Regulation actually meets the minimum delegation standards required under the EU Treaties and the CJEU’s case law.
Sustainability (‘ITY’)
Finally, the fourth requirement establishes that all carbon farming projects must go beyond their mitigation impact and produce several co-benefits regarding, for instance, the improvement of climate change adaptation or the protection and restoration of biodiversity and ecosystems (Article 7(1)). To do so, the Regulation commands the Commission to develop ‘minimum sustainability requirements’ to ensure the provision is effectively enforced (Article 7(3)).
In the first proposal, the Commission only obliged carbon farming operators to demonstrate a ‘neutral impact’ of their projects on sustainable standards (Article 7). However, the current Regulation introduces the ‘do no significant harm’ principle to ensure that carbon farming practices do not threaten the accomplishment of other sustainable objectives, especially the ones enshrined within the EU Natural Restoration Act. Thus, in that regard, the final Regulation seems to ensure the holistic protection of the environment. Still, some scholars regret the fact that these provisions do not include any socially-related objectives, such as the improvement of farmers’ standards of living or the reactivation of depopulated rural areas (see McDonald et al.).
Conclusion
While the CRCF Regulation introduces important steps to standardise and enhance carbon farming practices, it still relies on inconsistent mechanisms to ensure effective mitigation outcomes. Most importantly, the Regulation lacks reliable monitoring duties and effective liability solutions to ensure that carbon releases are avoided and those presumably responsible are held to account. Providing further safeguards on these concerns becomes crucial to make the Regulation an effective and trustworthy pathway towards a truly sustainable future.
Guillem Part López studied Law and Political Sciencies at University of Valencia, and graduated from the EU Law LLM programme at Utrecht University. He has a special interest in sustainability law and the European integration project.
