Priority should be given to domestic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, complementing it by increased removals, including through both natural and technological solutions. In the development of the post-2030 policy package, due attention should be paid to the contribution of gross emission reductions versus natural and technological removals. Natural removals have characteristics that should be taken into account, such as forest age structure, proportion of organic soils, natural variability, and uncertainties related to the impacts of climate change, to natural disturbances and to changes in methodologies. Natural and industrial removals will play an increasing role in the Union’s economy in the coming decades, in view of the need to balance greenhouse gas emissions and removals at the latest by 2050 and negative emissions thereafter. Incentives will be developed in the context of the review of Directive 2003/87/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council in 2026, where the Commission envisages to provide for the inclusion of domestic permanent carbon removals in the system for greenhouse gas emission allowance trading within the Union (the EU ETS) to compensate for residual hard to abate emissions. The land use, land- use change and forestry sector has a central role in a sustainable and circular bioeconomy and has the potential to provide long-term climate and environmental benefits, contributing to the clean transition of the Union economy and reducing dependencies by substituting fossil-based materials.
Text as published in the Official Journal, reproduced verbatim (including any typographical quirks of the source). For the authentic version, see EUR-Lex.
