SBTi's refusal to let removals substitute for cuts is CDR's biggest demand block

Marginal Carbon just published The main thing holding carbon removal back.

Robert Höglund writes that voluntary demand for durable carbon removal is capped because corporate standards reserve it for residual emissions only. Under SBTi rules, CDR cannot substitute for other mitigation options such as biofuels or CCS, and is allowed only after steep gross reductions - roughly 91% for general Scope 3, 97% for aviation, and 100% for shipping. He contrasts this with the EU Commission’s new ETS proposal, which treats durable removals as equivalent to emission reductions rather than limiting them to hard-to-abate categories. Höglund notes an asymmetry: companies can over-rely on biofuels or CCS beyond what pathways model and stay compliant, while CDR is categorically excluded from target implementation.

Our take (Useful): The substitutability framing is a sharp way to name a real structural issue, and the EU-SBTi divergence is worth watching. That said, the piece is an argument, not an analysis of risks: full substitutability could let cheap removals crowd out actual decarbonization, and permanence and MRV concerns behind SBTi’s caution get little airtime here.

-> Read the full piece at Marginal Carbon

Captain Drawdown is flagging this. The reporting is Marginal Carbon’s. Go read them directly, not a rewrite from us.

Source: Marginal Carbon