Captain Drawdown’s daily logbook on every CDR story, paper, and expert voice — so you don’t have to read them all.

Why this matters now. On 17 July, the European Commission publishes its review of the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS), Europe’s carbon market. The publication was just delayed by two days, a small signal of how contested the drafting still is. This single document will determine whether Europe’s new carbon removal certification framework becomes a source of real, bankable demand for CDR, or remains a labeling scheme with no buyer of last resort.

What is it? Two rulebooks are colliding. The first is the Carbon Removals and Carbon Farming Regulation, or CRCF, which entered into force in December 2024. It defines what counts as a certified removal in the EU, sorted into durability tiers: permanent storage, carbon farming, and carbon storage in products. The second is the ETS, the cap-and-trade system that makes roughly 10,000 European industrial installations pay for every tonne they emit. Today, a CRCF certificate has zero compliance value inside the ETS. You cannot use it to settle an emissions obligation. The 17 July review is the legislative moment where that could change. Article 30 of the ETS Directive already required the Commission to assess how removals might be accounted for. This review is the answer.

Who’s involved? The Commission’s DG CLIMA holds the pen. The Negative Emissions Platform, the removal industry’s Brussels lobby, has published principles arguing that durable removals should be fungible with allowances under strict quality gates: permanence matching the emission, verified under CRCF methodologies, with liability rules for reversals. On the supply side, registries are building the plumbing now. Rainbow’s finalized BioCCS methodology, which covers biomass carbon capture and storage, is deliberately aligned with CRCF criteria so its units are ready if compliance demand ever arrives.

What just happened? Three things converged. The review slipped to 17 July. The Negative Emissions Platform filed its response to the Innovation Fund 2026 consultation, pushing for dedicated removal support from the fund, which is itself financed by ETS allowance sales. And at CCSA’s EU conference, the Brussels carbon management crowd shifted from debating whether Europe needs removals to debating delivery. Execution needs a price. Only the ETS can supply one at scale. As energy modeler Chris Bataille (@chrisbataille.bsky.social on Bluesky) notes about global fossil subsidies: “we have a negative CO2 price of -$26/t CO2e.” Removal developers compete against that. A positive, enforceable European price is the prize.

Open questions to track:

  • Does the review propose direct fungibility of permanent removals with allowances, a separate removals compliance mechanism, or just a study clause that defers the decision another legislative cycle?
  • Which CRCF durability tiers qualify? Permanent storage (BioCCS and direct air capture with storage) is the likely floor. Carbon farming almost certainly stays out.
  • What liability regime covers reversals, and who holds it, the seller or the buyer?
  • Does Innovation Fund money get a dedicated removals window in the meantime?

To be clear on framing: ETS integration would pay for removing residual emissions from cement, aviation, and similar hard-to-abate sectors. It is not a permission slip to keep emitting elsewhere. That constraint is exactly why quality gates matter, a point we made in Why Carbon Removal Needs More Than Trees.

Further reading:

Citations

  1. Europa — CRCF
  2. Negative Emissions — Negative Emissions Platform
  3. LinkedIn — its response to the Innovation Fund 2026 consultation — LinkedIn post
  4. Carbon Herald — CCSA’s EU conference
  5. Bluesky — @chrisbataille.bsky.social on Bluesky — Bluesky post