The bare necessities: essential principles to design sensible carbon removal policies

The document argues that current carbon dioxide removal (CDR) policies often encourage 'mitigation deterrence' by treating removals as equivalent to emission reductions. It reviews various mechanisms—including emissions trading systems, tax credits, and voluntary markets—and concludes that most fail to ensure environmental integrity or permanence. The authors propose a 'blueprint' for sensible policy that strictly separates emission reduction targets from removal targets, mandates robust monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV), and prioritizes the 'Do No Significant Harm' principle. It suggests that funding for CDR should come from carbon pricing revenues or dedicated procurement schemes rather than offsetting mechanisms.

• Existing governance systems for carbon removals generally fail to address environmental concerns, most notably by allowing or encouraging 'mitigation deterrence,' where offsetting is used to avoid deep emission cuts.
• The assumption that one tonne of removed CO2 is equivalent to one tonne of emitted CO2 is scientifically incorrect; removals can have up to 10% less climate impact than emissions and cannot undo irreversible damages like sea-level rise.
• The authors propose a policy blueprint centered on three core principles: the precautionary principle, the 'Do No Significant Harm' principle, and the primacy of emissions reductions.
• To prevent mitigation deterrence, the document recommends strictly separating targets and policies for emission reductions, permanent removals, and land-based sequestration.
• Integrating removals into carbon markets is viewed as inherently flawed because it either leads to mitigation deterrence via cheap, low-quality units or fails to generate demand for high-integrity, expensive removal methods.
• The document identifies a critical distinction between land-based sequestration, which is vulnerable to disturbances and should be valued for biodiversity and resilience, and permanent CDR, which requires storage for several centuries to millennia.
• Current voluntary carbon markets (VCM) are dominated by land-based removals; 99.9% of global sequestration is land-based, while novel CDR technologies account for only 0.002 GtCO2 per year.
• The US 45Q tax credit is criticized for lacking life cycle assessments and for promoting enhanced oil recovery, potentially supporting projects that increase net emissions.
• The Carbon Takeback Obligation (CTBO) is analyzed as a way to internalize pollution costs by forcing fossil fuel producers to store carbon, but it risks shifting costs to consumers and may not sufficiently discourage fossil fuel use without a phase-out mandate.
• The authors suggest that public procurement via reverse auctions is a more transparent and efficient way to fund CDR than market-based offsetting, as it allows for the selection of projects based on scalability and co-benefits.

APA

De Simone, F., & Stoefs, W. (2023). The bare necessities: essential principles to design sensible carbon removal policies. Carbon Market Watch. https://carbonmarketwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/The-bare-necessities-essential-principles-to-design-sensible-carbon-removal-policies-1.pdf

Chicago

De Simone, Fabiola, and Wijnand Stoefs. The bare necessities: essential principles to design sensible carbon removal policies. Carbon Market Watch, 2023. https://carbonmarketwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/The-bare-necessities-essential-principles-to-design-sensible-carbon-removal-policies-1.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=De Simone |first1=Fabiola |last2=Stoefs |first2=Wijnand |title=The bare necessities: essential principles to design sensible carbon removal policies |publisher=Carbon Market Watch |date=November 2023 |url=https://carbonmarketwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/The-bare-necessities-essential-principles-to-design-sensible-carbon-removal-policies-1.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{desimone2023bare, author = {De Simone, Fabiola and Stoefs, Wijnand}, title = {{The bare necessities: essential principles to design sensible carbon removal policies}}, institution = {Carbon Market Watch}, year = {2023}, month = nov, url = {https://carbonmarketwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/The-bare-necessities-essential-principles-to-design-sensible-carbon-removal-policies-1.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }