Source: Council of the European Union

Full document: HERE

Extract: The Council of the European Union,

EMPHASISES the particularities of agriculture and forestry in the consideration of climate issues. Agriculture and forestry contribute to the overall effort to reduce emissions, which must remain the primary focus of European Union’s climate neutrality objective, and at the same time they are capable of absorbing and storing carbon through carbon pools (forests, forest soils and wood products, grasslands, agroforestry, agricultural soils, wetlands, etc.). 

STRESSES the importance of forests and their sustainable management as they fulfil multiple goals, including biodiversity conservation, the maintenance and enhancement of biomass production and their contribution to sustainable bioeconomy.

EMPHASISES that agriculture and forestry are also significantly affected by climate change, which influences amongst others the storage potential and makes it necessary to adapt production systems and to increase the resilience of ecosystems.

SUPPORTS the timely setting up of a Union expert group consisting of Member States’ representatives including from forestry, agriculture and environment to assist the Commission in taking into account existing best practices on carbon farming. SUGGESTS that this group could, in particular, help the Commission study all the existing international and national systems for accounting the GHG emission reductions and carbon storage in agriculture and forestry, as well as the carbon certification systems that already exist.

INVITES the Commission to have regard to the work of the expert group with a view to assessing the potential implications of broadening the scope of the EU regulatory framework for the certification of carbon removals to agricultural GHG emission reduction, including an increased incentive for land managers to reduce GHG emissions at farm level.