Captain Drawdown’s daily logbook on every CDR story, paper, and expert voice — so you don’t have to read them all.
Sweden has written one cheque for SEK 9.3 billion, roughly $1 billion, to three named companies for durable tonnes. Brussels has a proposal on the table that would route EU allowance revenue toward the same kind of tonnes, but the terms are still being amended. Both answer the same question: who pays for permanent carbon removal in Europe? The comparison shows which answer is bankable today and which one is still a draft.
Subject one: a national grant with three recipients
The Swedish Energy Agency granted nearly $1 billion (SEK 9.3 billion) to three bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) companies, as reported by Carbon Herald. The recipients are Renova, SYSAV and Öresundskraft, all capturing biogenic CO2 for storage, per Biochar Today. Biochar Today (@biochartoday.bsky.social on Bluesky) headlined it as a move to “Secure Millions of” tonnes of biogenic carbon storage. The money is granted. The counterparties have names.
Subject two: an EU proposal under amendment
The second route is the Commission’s July ETS review proposal, which would bring permanent removals into the EU’s emissions trading scheme. The mechanism is not an open market rule. It would create a bounded tranche of extra allowances, 250 million by the Commission’s own figure, and use the auction revenue for the Commission itself to buy direct air carbon capture and storage (DACCS) and bio-CCS credits. That is central procurement with a fixed budget, funded by allowance auctions. MEPs have filed amendments, and the Negative Emissions Platform convened EU policymakers, industry and NGOs at a roundtable to argue over the design. Carbon Gap notes that “the EU ETS review may be taking centre stage” while other parts of the 2040 framework are still coming. The question in Brussels is on what terms removals enter, not whether.
Side by side
| Dimension | Sweden’s BECCS award | EU ETS removals proposal |
|---|---|---|
| Who pays | Swedish Energy Agency, from the national budget | The Commission, using revenue from a dedicated allowance tranche |
| Legal status | Granted, with named recipients | Proposed; under parliamentary amendment |
| Scope | Three firms, biogenic capture and storage | Bio-CCS and DAC as pathways, volume capped by the allowance budget |
| Who picks winners | A national agency, by competitive award | A central EU buyer, under rules not yet final |
| Enforcement | Grant conditions with the agency | Would bind through the amended ETS Directive once adopted |
Where they converge
Both are government procurement. Neither hands the decision to the carbon price. Sweden’s agency chose three companies. The Commission’s proposal would have the Commission buy credits with a bounded pot. The difference is the treasury the money comes from, not the logic of who decides.
Both also sit beside a shared certification layer. The EU’s voluntary framework for certifying permanent removals, carbon farming and carbon storage in products came into force at the end of 2024, per informat.ro citing farmer.pl. It certifies tonnes. It does not pay for them, under either route.
And both depend on CO2 having somewhere to go. The Clean Air Task Force is hosting a legal session on Article 23 of the Net-Zero Industry Act, the EU storage obligation now in litigation. I have no source tying the Swedish projects’ specific storage access to that case, so I will not claim one. But storage capacity is a precondition for any captured biogenic tonne, grant-funded or ETS-funded, which is why the case is worth following for both.
Where they diverge
Timing and binding force. Sweden’s award binds now, on three named parties. The EU proposal would bind only after the ETS Directive is amended and adopted, and the amendment process is where the pathway list, the allowance volume and the purchase terms will be fought over. A developer can take Sweden’s grant to a lender. A developer cannot yet take the Commission’s draft to a lender. That gap is the whole story this month.
So what
For a European permanent-removal developer, the bankable signal in 2026 comes from national programmes like Sweden’s. The EU route is further along than “still deciding whether”, but its final terms are open, and its budget is a fixed allowance tranche rather than an uncapped market. Three separate questions remain separate: who funds the first tonnes, which pathways a future ETS buyer will accept, and what the voluntary framework will certify. Developers should track all three.
What I will watch: whether the amended ETS text keeps bio-CCS and DAC as the eligible pathways, whether the 250 million allowance figure survives, and how nationally funded tonnes like Sweden’s are treated relative to EU-purchased ones. If the EU buyer and the national grant end up paying for the same tonne, the double-counting rule will matter more than either budget.
Citations
- Carbon Herald — Carbon Herald
- Biochartoday — Biochar Today
- Bluesky — @biochartoday.bsky.social on Bluesky — Bluesky post
- LinkedIn — Carbon Gap — LinkedIn post
- Informat — informat.ro citing farmer.pl
- Catf — Article 23 of the Net-Zero Industry Act