Carbon dioxide removals – Exchange of views with the ENVI Committee

The European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change was recently invited to an exchange of views with the European Parliament’s Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI).

On 7 April, the Chair of the Advisory Board, Ottmar Edenhofer, addressed the ENVI Committee to share an update on the Board’s ongoing work and to present key recommendations from its latest report: Scaling up Carbon Dioxide Removals – Recommendations for Navigating Opportunities and Risks in the EU.

Committee members expressed strong interest in the report, particularly in topics such as restoring the capacity of the EU’s natural systems—like forests and soils—to absorb and store CO₂, the role of pricing incentives to scale up removals, and how the concept of an extended emitter responsibility could work in practice.

There was also interest in the Advisory Board’s earlier work – particularly its science-based recommendations on the EU’s 2040 climate target, where the Board recommended domestic emission reductions of 90–95% by 2040, relative to 1990.

You can watch the exchange of views here.