Communication on industrial carbon management

The EESC:

• believes that the Industrial Carbon Management Strategy is very welcomed and balanced, covering elements crucial for deploying Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) and Carbon Capture and Utilisation (CCU) at industrial scale in the EU;
• recognises that in order to build a single market in carbon, establishing storage and transport infrastructure (including cross-border) together with market rules is necessary;
• draws attention to the need to tailor carbon management strategies to specific industrial sectors;
• maintains that it is fundamental to identify the barriers undermining effective implementation of existing carbon management practices, in order to implement changes and define strategies;
• believes that the EU needs an industrial strategy for carbon, boosting growth in a sustainable manner, that not only delivers the Green Deal but also ensures quality jobs and a just transition for workers, while identifying labour and skills shortages mitigated by reskilling and upskilling;
• recommends a clear investment plan for developing CCS/CCU technologies, while public funding should have a social conditionality mechanism geared to creating and maintaining quality jobs;
• believes that carbon reduction projects should involve in a balanced way both, carbon removal and carbon avoidance however, carbon avoidance is currently insufficiently supported;
• recommends establishing a new, separate, well-designed, high-integrity and robust credit scheme for carbon avoidance, offering incentives to decarbonise;
• claims that EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) allowances should not be used as ‘credits’, as this could undermine the current market-based nature of the EU’s carbon trading system.