The climate plans of six European countries are too reliant on carbon removals, with Ireland showing the most alarming dependence, a new Carbon Market Watch analysis shows. This risks stalling achievable emissions cuts and puts the EU’s climate targets in danger.

At a time when deep, rapid, and sustained emission cuts are indisputable, European governments are increasingly relying on technological, nature-based and mixed-method processes to remove CO2 from the atmosphere.

Carbon Market Watch analysed the climate strategies and underlying assessments of six European countries – Austria, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, and Norway – and the European Commission in our new series of reports titled “Leaning on uncertainty“. Across the board, an alarming pattern consistently emerges: a heavy reliance on carbon dioxide removals (CDR) to achieve climate targets. Moreover, this dependence is resting on shaky ground due to a consistent failure to carry out critical feasibility assessments.

“By being overconfident about the future availability of removals, countries are not being ambitious; they are taking unnecessary risks. The translation of the EU 2040 climate target into national targets is an opportunity to make explicit that emission reductions should always come ahead of CDR, and that removals without adequate impact assessments cannot be part of any credible climate plan. If policymakers don’t listen to science, strong overreliance on CDR can be a crucial mistake that could make the climate fight even more difficult,” explains Daniel Orth, a policy expert on carbon removals at Carbon Market Watch.

Uncalculated risks

The approaches, projections, and envisioned use of CDR in the countries’ climate plans disregard the best available evidence and scientific advice. 

Ireland presents the most severe case, deploying bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) and biochar as early as its 2026–2030 carbon budget period, even though the Irish government’s own expert advisors have warned that CO2 storage capacity will likely not be available before 2030. This means that the Irish government plans to use a tool that will likely not be up to the task to fill a hole in its insufficient climate strategy, rather than adequately plan its approach to emissions reductions. 

A similarly fantastical approach is being pursued by France, which plans to deliver 15 million tonnes of biomass-based permanent CO2 removals by 2050, with at least 0.4 million tonnes to be available by 2030. However, its own National Energy and Climate Plan acknowledges that biomass demand may already exceed domestic supply by 2030. At the same time, France has no concrete policies or plans in place to address this shortage

Strained natural resources

Across all the reviewed climate plans, the carbon sequestration effects of trees, land and vegetation – commonly referred to as land sink or land carbon sinks – are imagined to play a vital role in removing carbon from the atmosphere. But several countries are doing nothing to protect and restore their declining land sinks, which are now at risk of emitting more carbon than they can sequester. This is the case in Finland, where forestry sector emissions have been increasing, but the country failed to act on its Climate Change Panel’s recommendation to reduce logging levels.

France’s land carbon sink has also declined significantly over the past decade, due to droughts, pest outbreaks, and high harvest levels. The impact of climate change is not adequately accounted for in the land-sink projections of assessed climate strategies.

Between a rock and a hard place

There is a significant emphasis across assessed climate strategies to store carbon dioxide in the geological features (such as rock formations) of other countries, without proper assessments or consideration of real-world limitations and barriers. 

Finland, Austria, and France all plan to export captured CO2 to Norway or the North Sea, yet storage capacity in Northern Europe is highly sought after, limited and likely insufficient to meet rising future demand. Norway’s own storage site assessments lack rigorous economic and environmental analysis, leaving the true usable volume and long-term viability of storage sites substantially uncertain. Ireland relies on permanent removals while admitting that it has not undertaken sufficient analysis of its storage options abroad, despite relying on them in its plan. 

Demand cannot outweigh the supply

Carbon dioxide removals are an unavoidable supplement to rapid, deep, and sustained emission reductions, and therefore have a role in European climate policy. But this role is only fulfilled if it is implemented as a true option of last resort, with high transparency, rigour, and caution.

The findings of this report show that CDR projections are running ahead of assessments, resources, infrastructure, and feasibility. Strategies are disconnected from the scientific advice they should build on. The result is a set of climate plans that are insufficiently credible and robust, leading us further off the path towards a safe climate and future.

Governments must prioritise drastic cuts in emissions over carbon removals and start the hard work of developing reliable CDR, rather than using it to fill gaps in climate plans.