The technology already works on a small scale.
(Photo: Meinrad Schade/laif)
Brussels The EU Commission is launching a new way of protecting the climate. A new law should make it worthwhile to remove CO2 from the air. In addition to methods in timber and agriculture, there are technical systems that extract CO2 from the air and bind it. The first pilot plants are in operation.
However, to date there has been no market for either the natural methods or the technical “direct air capture”. In order for them to be worthwhile, the operators must be able to charge a price for the CO2 removed.
There is now a legislative proposal for this for the first time. The EU Commission wants to establish a certificate system that can be used to prove the amount of CO2 that has been filtered out of the air.
The proposal sets conditions for the long-term storage of the CO2, for the relevant evidence and for the monitoring of the process. However, many important details still have to be worked out.
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Companies should be able to buy the certificates. They could call themselves “CO2-neutral” even though they continue to cause CO2 themselves. Labels could identify building materials with negative emissions. Subsidies for farmers who bind CO2 when tilling their fields are also conceivable.
How it could go on
In the long term, the EU could go further: “We are eagerly awaiting ‘Direct Air Capture’,” says Peter Liese (CDU), Member of the European Parliament. “That’s why the certificates must become part of European emissions trading in the future.”
If a forest is attacked by pests or burns, or if a field is farmed using other methods, the CO2 can be released again.
(Photo: dpa)
In emissions trading (ETS), permits for the emission of CO2 are traded. This means that CO2 emissions are becoming more and more expensive and creates an incentive to operate in a particularly climate-friendly manner. The system is the most important climate protection instrument of the EU. The certificates from the CO2 removal could be converted into emission allowances in the ETS.
But it’s not that far yet. For the time being, the CO2 withdrawals are not to be included in trading because the certification system first has to prove itself. Buying the certificates is purely voluntary. Their value is therefore uncertain and so is the question of how much money can be made with direct air capture.
“The EU countries have long avoided the issue of CO2 removal,” says Oliver Geden from the Science and Politics Foundation. “Now they’re finally being forced to deal with it.”
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Because the idea that large amounts of pure CO2 are stored underground does not appeal to many voters. It is not yet certain whether newer methods, in which the CO2 is bound as a solid and used as a building material, are worthwhile.
criticism from environmentalists
In addition to technical CO2 removal from the air, CO2 can also be bound through the cultivation of fields and forests. However, these methods have the major disadvantage that it is almost impossible to control how long the CO2 remains bound: if a forest is attacked by pests or burns, or if a field is cultivated using other methods, the CO2 can be released again. How this can be avoided is not yet part of the new legislative proposal, but is to be clarified in the coming years.
Environmentalists fear that the ability to bind CO2 will result in fewer efforts to reduce CO2 emissions. That would actually be bad: Filtering CO2 out of the air consumes large amounts of electricity. It is therefore only worthwhile when investments in energy efficiency and renewable energies have been exhausted and there is an abundance of electricity.
Accordingly, the only plant to date that captures CO2 from the air on a significant scale is in Iceland, where electricity is produced cheaply using geothermal energy.
“Drastic emission cuts will always be at the forefront of our efforts,” said EU Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans at the presentation of the new law.
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In the long term, however, it is clear that CO2 removal will be needed. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) sees no other way of doing business in a truly climate-neutral manner. Because in some production processes, the emission of CO2 cannot be avoided. In the scenarios of the EU, which wants to be climate-neutral by 2050, long-term emissions are therefore planned, which are offset by withdrawals.
“All countries and the EU that have set themselves the goal of climate neutrality know that they cannot get by without CO2 removal,” says Geden.
More: CO2 storage is experiencing a breakthrough worldwide – Germany is still fighting back