Climate is shortchanged by oversimplified like-for-like approach to carbon removals

The statement critiques the 'like-for-like' principle in climate policy, which suggests matching the atmospheric lifetime or carbon cycle of emissions with corresponding removal types. The author contends that this logic allows industries to use cheap, temporary, and vulnerable removals to avoid deep emission cuts. It specifically highlights the danger of offsetting methane emissions with temporary storage, noting that methane has a permanent climate impact as it breaks down into CO2. The document also discusses the EU Green Claims Directive, noting a divide between the European Parliament's preference for permanent removals for fossil emissions and the more permissive stance of the European Commission and Council. The author concludes that all residual emissions should be balanced only by high-quality removals that lock away CO2 for centuries or millennia.

• The 'like-for-like' principle is used in policymaking to justify offsetting and the use of temporary removals, which the author argues is a systematic abuse used to avoid necessary emission reductions, especially for short-lived climate pollutants like methane.
• Removals cannot reverse all climate impacts of greenhouse gas emissions, such as sea level rise, biodiversity loss, and ocean acidification, and should therefore be treated as a last resort for emissions that cannot be reduced or avoided.
• The approach of matching the atmospheric lifetime of emissions to the storage duration of removals risks the use of cheap removals to compensate for damage, ignoring feasible cuts in methane-emitting sectors despite methane's permanent impact as it breaks down into CO2.
• The logic of the 'short carbon cycle'—where biogenic emissions are offset by nature-based removals—ignores that much of this activity is driven by anthropogenic economic activity in forestry and livestock farming and that the atmosphere does not differentiate between biogenic and fossil carbon.
• Within the EU Green Claims Directive, the European Parliament proposes that fossil fuel emissions be compensated only by permanent removals, whereas the European Commission and Council support the use of removals for company-level emissions without strict limitations.

APA

Orth, D. (2025). Climate is shortchanged by oversimplified like-for-like approach to carbon removals. Carbon Market Watch. https://carbonmarketwatch.org/2025/10/03/climate-is-shortchanged-by-oversimplified-like-for-like-approach-to-carbon-removals/

Chicago

Orth, Daniel. Climate is shortchanged by oversimplified like-for-like approach to carbon removals. Carbon Market Watch, 2025. https://carbonmarketwatch.org/2025/10/03/climate-is-shortchanged-by-oversimplified-like-for-like-approach-to-carbon-removals/.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |last1=Orth |first1=Daniel |title=Climate is shortchanged by oversimplified like-for-like approach to carbon removals |publisher=Carbon Market Watch |date=3 October 2025 |url=https://carbonmarketwatch.org/2025/10/03/climate-is-shortchanged-by-oversimplified-like-for-like-approach-to-carbon-removals/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{orth2025climate, author = {Orth, Daniel}, title = {{Climate is shortchanged by oversimplified like-for-like approach to carbon removals}}, publisher = {Carbon Market Watch}, year = {2025}, month = oct, url = {https://carbonmarketwatch.org/2025/10/03/climate-is-shortchanged-by-oversimplified-like-for-like-approach-to-carbon-removals/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }