NGO Coalition Challenges EU Commission on Bio-CCS and Biochar Carbon Removal Methodologies

A coalition of nine environmental NGOs including Carbon Market Watch, WWF EU, Fern and Robin Wood has submitted a formal request for internal review to the European Commission challenging the methodologies for biogenic emissions capture with carbon storage and biochar carbon removal under the Delegated Act for the Carbon Removals and Carbon Farming Regulation, arguing the approaches will not deliver permanent removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as required under the CRCF. The challenge, supported by legal representation from 11KBW and Baldon Avocats and scientific support from the Forest Litigation Collaborative, lays out six grounds on which the Commission's methodologies are alleged to be unlawful, including the erroneous counting of biogenic carbon storage as atmospheric removal, failure to account for indirect land use change and inadequate monitoring requirements for biochar. The European Commission has up to 22 weeks to respond to the request under the Aarhus Regulation, and if it refuses the grounds for review the NGOs can bring an action for annulment before the EU General Court.

 

The Six Grounds for Review and Their Significance

 

The first and most fundamental ground alleges that the Commission has unlawfully counted the storage of biogenic carbon as removal of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, while simultaneously failing to account for emissions associated with changes in biogenic carbon stocks in the quantification methodology. This critique strikes at the core scientific validity of the Bio-CCS certification approach, arguing that capturing and storing carbon dioxide from biomass combustion does not constitute net atmospheric removal if the carbon content of the biomass would otherwise have remained in forests or soils rather than being released through burning. The second ground alleges that the Bio-CCS quantification methodology unlawfully includes only emissions arising from additional biomass used specifically for the carbon capture process, excluding the broader emissions associated with biomass procurement and combustion.

The remaining grounds address methane emissions from storage excluded from the greenhouse gas accounting when biomass is stored under certain conditions, failure to account for indirect land use change in breach of the CRCF's Article 4 requirements, inadequate or unlawful monitoring rules for biochar activities and failure to adhere to sustainability requirements for biomass harvesting and use. Together these six grounds present a systematic legal and scientific challenge to the integrity of the Commission's methodologies, arguing that the Delegated Act fails to implement the original CRCF Regulation as legislated rather than merely representing a policy disagreement about the appropriate approach. Marlène Ramón Hernández, Policy Expert in Carbon Removals at Carbon Market Watch, said that within and outside the expert group environmental organisations have consistently put forward recommendations to improve the methodology design but the Commission took a different approach, leaving flawed methodologies that do not comply with the original CRCF mandate.

 

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The Forest and Ecosystem Impact Concerns

 

WWF EU Climate and Land Use Policy Officer Sofia Ghezzi said the methodologies are not grounded in science and risk doing the opposite of what they should, potentially certifying activities that undermine climate, biodiversity, clean air and water by ignoring their broader impact on forests and ecosystems. The concern that Bio-CCS methodologies incentivise the burning of wood for carbon capture without adequately accounting for forest carbon stock changes echoes long-standing disputes over bioenergy sustainability that have characterised EU bioenergy policy debates for over a decade. Martin Pigeon, Forest and Climate Campaigner at Fern, said the Commission's Delegated Act repeats bioenergy policy mistakes by incentivising the burning of unlimited amounts of wood in the name of climate action without examining the forest impacts, arguing that rewarding the burying of carbon dioxide emissions from wood burning without monitoring forest impacts is likely to worsen rather than improve the climate crisis.

The NGOs argue that the stakes of the methodological challenge extend beyond the CRCF's immediate scope to the EU Emissions Trading System, as the Commission is currently assessing whether to use certified carbon removals to offset fossil emissions in the ETS. If Bio-CCS and biochar removals certified under flawed methodologies were permitted to offset ETS emissions, the NGOs argue this would divert investment away from more reliable carbon removals while providing a mechanism for fossil fuel emitters to continue operating beyond what the climate science justifies. Elsie Blackshaw-Crosby, Director of Legal at The Lifescape Project, said the request for internal review holds the Commission accountable by challenging an approach that risks enabling the very greenwashing the Regulation was intended to prevent.

 

The Legal and Procedural Context

 

The NGO coalition's use of the Aarhus Regulation's internal review procedure represents a structured legal escalation following three years of sustained engagement with the Commission through the Carbon Removals Expert Group, external advocacy and participation in the consultation exercise. A briefing to European decision-makers warning that the proposed methodologies risk undermining the integrity of EU climate action was co-signed by 43 organisations, and several political groups in the European Parliament's Environmental Committee proposed a resolution to object to the Delegated Act on the grounds that it did not respect the CRCF Regulation as finalised. The breadth of this institutional support for the challenge, spanning NGOs, legal experts, scientific institutions and parliamentary groups, suggests the methodological concerns identified by the coalition are widely shared across the EU environmental and climate policy community.

Mary Booth, Director at the Partnership for Policy Integrity, said the Commission's own studies recognise that burning trees and storing the carbon belowground removes carbon from forests rather than from the atmosphere, and that the public and planet deserve climate policies based on science and reality rather than wishful thinking. The scientific dimension of the challenge is as important as the legal one, because the credibility of the EU carbon removal framework depends on the underlying methodologies accurately representing the atmospheric carbon balance of certified activities. If the Commission's Bio-CCS and biochar methodologies systematically overstate carbon removal outcomes, the CRCF's intended function as a rigorous, science-based certification standard that prevents greenwashing is fundamentally compromised.

 

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Outlook for EU Carbon Removal Certification Integrity

 

The NGO challenge to the CRCF Delegated Act arrives at a critical moment for the EU carbon removal policy framework, which is intended to provide the rigorous certification standards needed to scale high-quality carbon removals in support of European climate neutrality by 2050. Whether the Commission accepts the grounds for review and revises the methodologies or refuses and faces potential litigation before the EU General Court will determine whether the CRCF's inaugural Bio-CCS and biochar certification framework retains scientific credibility or becomes a contested standard that undermines investor and buyer confidence in EU-certified carbon removals. A successful challenge that results in revised methodologies would strengthen the long-term integrity of the EU carbon removal market, while a failed challenge that proceeds to court would create regulatory uncertainty that could delay investment in the carbon removal sector.

The convergence of NGO legal challenges, parliamentary opposition and scientific critique around the CRCF Delegated Act's Bio-CCS and biochar methodologies creates significant political pressure on the Commission to engage seriously with the substance of the review request rather than defending the existing approach without modification. The next phase of EU carbon removal policy development will be shaped substantially by the Commission's response to this challenge and its implications for the broader question of how the EU reconciles bioenergy's contested climate credentials with the need for large-scale carbon removal to achieve its 2050 climate neutrality target.

 

Source: WWF - World Wide Fund For Nature