Analysing the methodologies for certifying carbon farming

The policy brief by Carbon Market Watch criticises the EU's CRCF carbon farming methodologies for agriculture, agroforestry, afforestation, and peatland rewetting. It argues that the framework lacks clear use cases, potentially allowing for problematic offsetting, and suffers from flawed quantification, weak additionality tests, and insufficient sustainability safeguards. The report warns that these deficiencies could lead to the overestimation of carbon removals and undermine the EU's climate goals and international reputation.

• The CRCF framework lacks clear provisions on how certified units can be used, which creates a regulatory gap that may allow for inappropriate offsetting and greenwashing. The author argues that using temporary carbon sequestration units for offsetting is conceptually and technically problematic because such units are volatile and temporary.
• The methodologies for agriculture and agroforestry are deemed too permissive, featuring non-exhaustive lists of practices and failing to account for critical emission sources. Specifically, livestock emissions are excluded from monitoring and quantification despite the eligibility of activities like rotational grazing, which likely leads to a net positive climate effect being overestimated.
• The framework fails to adequately address indirect land use change (ILUC) and leakage. The delegated act incorrectly ties ecological ILUC risks to economic profitability, ignoring the fact that small shifts in land use can trigger the displacement of food and feed production elsewhere regardless of profitability.
• Monitoring periods are considered too short to ensure the permanence of carbon removals. For example, afforestation has a monitoring period of 40 years, while agriculture varies between 5 and 30 years. This is insufficient given that fossil fuel emissions affect the climate for centuries, and there are no enforcement mechanisms to ensure replacement units are purchased if reversals occur after the monitoring period expires.
• Quantification approaches are described as 'elastic' and non-conservative. The methodologies allow for the use of models and default emission factors that may overestimate removals. Furthermore, soil sampling for mineral soils is restricted to a depth of 0-30cm, which the report claims is insufficient as it ignores carbon losses deeper in the soil column.
• Additionality requirements are weakened by the lack of a 'common practice test' and the presence of temporary exemptions. The report notes that some exemptions allow for retroactive crediting of projects started between 1 January 2023 and 31 December 2027, which undermines the principle that funding should only support activities that would not have happened otherwise.
• Liability and risk mechanisms are insufficient, particularly for peatland rewetting, where the delegated act assumes emission reductions are permanent and thus does not prescribe a risk assessment or liability mechanism. For mineral soils, the risk rates (2% to 10%) are considered too low to adequately fund buffer pools against reversals.
• Sustainability safeguards are vague and lack measurable indicators. The mandatory co-benefits criterion for biodiversity is implemented with high flexibility, allowing operators to rely on general scientific literature rather than site-specific evidence. Additionally, the afforestation methodology ignores the albedo effect, which can counteract carbon benefits by increasing atmospheric radiative forcing.

APA

Hernández, M. R. (2026). Analysing the methodologies for certifying carbon farming. Carbon Market Watch. https://carbonmarketwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Faulty-to-the-Core-II_-analysing-the-CRCF-Carbon-Farming-methodologies-2-combined.pdf

Chicago

Hernández, Marlène Ramón. Analysing the methodologies for certifying carbon farming. Carbon Market Watch, 2026. https://carbonmarketwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Faulty-to-the-Core-II_-analysing-the-CRCF-Carbon-Farming-methodologies-2-combined.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Hernández |first1=Marlène Ramón |title=Analysing the methodologies for certifying carbon farming |publisher=Carbon Market Watch |date=August 2026 |url=https://carbonmarketwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Faulty-to-the-Core-II_-analysing-the-CRCF-Carbon-Farming-methodologies-2-combined.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{hernndez2026analysing, author = {Hernández, Marlène Ramón}, title = {{Analysing the methodologies for certifying carbon farming}}, institution = {Carbon Market Watch}, year = {2026}, month = aug, url = {https://carbonmarketwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Faulty-to-the-Core-II_-analysing-the-CRCF-Carbon-Farming-methodologies-2-combined.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }