Restoring sustainable carbon cycles

Scope and objectives

On 21 February 2022, the NAT Section of the European Economic and Social Committee will organise an online public hearing to connect relevant experts and key stakeholders to feed into its opinion on Restoring sustainable carbon cycles. At this event, we will explore the opportunities and challenges of carbon farming in achieving sustainability, as well as those of industrial carbon capture, use and storage.

In order to reach climate neutrality, greenhouse gas emissions will have to be reduced drastically and rapidly while carbon removals will have to be increased and further integrated into EU climate policies. From recycling carbon from biomass, waste and directly from air, to replacing fossil carbon in the production of the fuels, materials and food of the future, various options are being proposed from nature based solutions to industrial based solutions on carbon capture, storage and use.

The event will bring together speakers and participants from organised civil society, business associations, think tanks, as well as EU institutions to discuss the main opportunities and challenges of deploying carbon removal solutions to achieve carbon neutrality.

This event will be webstreamed and interpreted into EN, FR and RO. Viewers will have the opportunity to engage in the debate using the platform Slido with the code: #CarbonCycles.

Context 

On 16 December 2021, the European Commission adopted a communication on sustainable carbon cycles which sets out an action plan on how to develop sustainable solutions to increase carbon removals and proposes short - to medium-term actions to tackle them. The communication looks at the development and deployment of natural removal solutions (as carbon farming) in line with the objectives of the EU Forest Strategy, the Circular Economy Action Plan, the EU's Long Term Vision for Rural Areas and the Farm to Fork Strategy, and also technological carbon removal solutions (carbon capture, storage and use).

With this Communication and consequent actions, the Commission wants to kick-start and upscale carbon removal across the EU by addressing the current implementation challenges.

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