Policy Briefing #20. Initial approach to monitoring reporting and verification (MRV) of agroforestry carbon farming in the EU.

Policy Briefing #20 (v3) responds to the provisionally approved text of the Carbon Removals Certification Framework (CRCF). Delegated and Implementing Acts will now be produced by the Commission, aiming to implement “permanent carbon removals”, “removals in harvested products” and “carbon-farming”. This Briefing gives advice on how the Delegated Act on “monitoring, reporting and verification of carbon farming” could be approached for the activity of “agricultural soils and agroforestry”. Sixteen monitoring criteria are listed in the agreed CRCF. Most can be addressed by IPCC rules, existing carbon-farming protocols, and improved biophysical modelling. The last two criteria deal with the demonstration of “no significant harm” in five areas of sustainability and a “positive co-benefit” in the area of “biodiversity and ecosystems”. Techniques and indicators for these criteria remain to be developed. It is vital that procedures and data used to monitor carbon farming and national reporting of GHG emissions are shared, and that carbon farming initiatives can contribute in a robust and verifiable manner to the achievement of national emission reduction targets. Most importantly, the CRCF should be attractive enough for Member States to collectively reach the LULUCF target of 310 Mt CO2e removals by 2030, or even the 420 Mt CO2e total removals in the land sector by 2040, suggested in initial drafts of the Communication on Europe’s 2040 climate target (COM-2024-63).