MEP Emma Wiesner: Let EU ETS Operators buy CDR Directly

In this episode of The CDR Policy Scoop, Eve Tamme and Sebastian Manhart sit down with Emma Wiesner, Renew Europe's shadow rapporteur on the EU ETS review, as she finalises her amendments to the Commission's proposal to bring carbon removals into the EU Emissions Trading System. Emma is an energy systems engineer who sits on the European Parliament's ENVI and ITRE committees and substitutes in AGRI committee. She pushed for a market for negative emissions in the last ETS revision, and says seeing it finally proposed gave her goosebumps.

Her biggest ask is that the Commission should not be the only buyer. Emma wants ETS installations to be able to buy removals directly instead of allowances, with those purchases counted within the overall 250 megaton cap, creating a business to business market she argues would be far more dynamic than waiting on a central purchasing facility. Eve and Sebastian test the idea against Peter Liese's scepticism, the cost gap between removals and EU allowances, and whether every installation should get the same access.

On quality, Emma is firm: the CRCF separated permanent from temporary removals for a reason, and the ETS should build on it. Biochar is not ready today, she says, though the door should stay open. On international credits she is openly reluctant, pointing to Sweden's e-scooters in Ghana as a cautionary tale and making a moral case for Europe doing its homework at home.

The conversation closes on what should happen to unused CDR allowances, when purchasing should start, and the childhood landfill visit that sparked Emma's passion for combined heat and power and BECCS.

LINKS

• Eve Tamme: LinkedIn and Website
• Sebastian Manhart: LinkedIn and Website
• Emma Wiesner: LinkedIn and European Parliament profile
• EU ETS revision proposal
• MEP Peter Liese: the Rapporteur's take on removals in the EU ETS

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