MEP Peter Liese: the Rapporteur's take on removals in the EU ETS

In this episode of The CDR Policy Scoop, Eve Tamme and Sebastian Manhart sit down with Dr. Peter Liese, the German MEP steering Parliament's response to the Commission's July 2026 proposal to revise the EU ETS, and the show's first sitting MEP guest. Liese kept the pen on the file just days earlier, when the ENVI committee rejected a bid to remove him as rapporteur, and this conversation lands in the window before his own draft report becomes public on 11 September, two days after this episode releases.

Liese argues Parliament should go further than the Commission's text on almost every count. He wants no ceiling on how many removals the scheme can buy, reasoning that if costs keep falling the way they did for solar, an artificial cap makes little sense, and he wants biochar added alongside the currently eligible DACCS and BECCS, likely capped near a fifth of the volume so most support still flows to the two technologies already in the text.

On the price gap flagged by third party estimates, including one suggesting scaling removals could cost tens of billions of euros more than the Commission expects, Liese's answer is to add more allowances rather than let the target slip, and he is candid that a falling carbon price driven by cheap removals would be something to celebrate, not fear. He previews sharper numbers for the linear reduction factor than the Commission proposed, and sets out why he backs an indirect route for international credits while pushing for more predictability than the current review clause offers.

He closes on the bigger picture: once the policy scaffolding is in place, he wants the market and the engineers to do the rest, confident that carbon removals can follow the same cost curve that made solar the cheapest form of electricity. With his own report due within days, this is the clearest picture yet of where Parliament's negotiating position is headed.

LINKS

• Eve Tamme: LinkedIn and Website
• Sebastian Manhart: LinkedIn and Website
• Peter Liese: European Parliament profile and Website
• EU ETS revision proposal, European Commission, July 2026

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