Leaning on Uncertainty

Austria aims for climate neutrality by 2040, relying on industrial carbon removals (up to 6.3 Mt CO2eq) and land sinks, yet lacks a legally binding national climate law. While the 2024 Carbon Management Strategy (CMS) provides a transparent roadmap, significant delivery risks exist regarding the technical feasibility and timing of CO2 transport and storage infrastructure. Furthermore, there is high uncertainty regarding the long-term performance of the LULUCF sector and a lack of safeguards to prevent BECCS deployment from degrading the natural land sink.

• Austria lacks a legally binding national climate law to support its 2040 climate neutrality objective, which currently applies only to non-ETS sectors.
• The government projects a need for industrial carbon removals between 1.7 and 6.3 Mt CO2eq in 2040 to compensate for hard-to-abate emissions, with a heavy focus on Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS).
• There is a conflict between government timelines and technical feasibility for CO2 infrastructure; the CMS expects domestic storage by 2030, but the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT) suggests injection will likely not begin before 2035.
• Austria's ability to meet its 2030 LULUCF Regulation target of -5.65 Mt annual net removals is uncertain, with recent projections estimating only 4 to 4.19 Mt CO2eq net removals.
• The 2024 Carbon Management Strategy (CMS) fails to provide safeguards or address the risk that biomass demand for BECCS could degrade the natural land sink.
• Domestic geological storage capacity is limited (estimated at 150-250 Mt), meaning Austria will inevitably depend on international storage sites after 25 years of operation.
• The estimated capital costs for CO2 transport infrastructure are between EUR 12-18 billion, with annual operating costs of EUR 1-3 billion.

APA

Orth, D. (2026). Leaning on Uncertainty. Carbon Market Watch. https://carbonmarketwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Leaning-on-uncertainty-Austria.pdf

Chicago

Orth, Daniel. Leaning on Uncertainty. Carbon Market Watch, 2026. https://carbonmarketwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Leaning-on-uncertainty-Austria.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Orth |first1=Daniel |title=Leaning on Uncertainty |publisher=Carbon Market Watch |date=April 2026 |url=https://carbonmarketwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Leaning-on-uncertainty-Austria.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{orth2026leaning, author = {Orth, Daniel}, title = {{Leaning on Uncertainty}}, institution = {Carbon Market Watch}, year = {2026}, month = apr, url = {https://carbonmarketwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Leaning-on-uncertainty-Austria.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }