Such credits will allow the EU to pay for emissions-slashing projects in other, usually poorer countries, and count the resulting greenhouse gas reductions toward its own 2040 target, rather than the climate goals of the country hosting the project. The draft proposal envisages using them only in the second half of the decade.
“Starting from 2036, a possible limited contribution towards the 2040 target of high-quality international credits under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement” — global rules governing carbon credits — “of no more than 3% of 1990 EU net emissions,” the draft states.
The Commission aims to propose legislation regulating such credits at an unspecified date, the draft adds. “Their specific role and deployment would need to be based on a thorough impact assessment and subject to the development of Union law setting robust and high integrity criteria and standards, and conditions on origin, timing and use of such credits.”
Critics, including the bloc’s scientific advisers, warn that relying even just in part on international credits risks slowing the EU’s climate efforts at home. The EU’s existing 2030 and 2050 targets must be met solely through domestic measures.
But the proposal specifically excludes the possibility of integrating credits in the EU’s carbon market, an option that some experts feared could tank the bloc’s CO2 price, which is meant to incentivize companies to reduce their emissions.
“These international credits should not play a role for compliance in the EU carbon market,” the draft reads.