{"id":3156,"date":"2025-11-17T18:03:30","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T17:03:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/afen.fr\/?p=3156"},"modified":"2025-11-18T16:15:46","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T15:15:46","slug":"elimination-du-dioxyde-de-carbone-et-negociations-climatiques-de-kyoto-a-belem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/afen.fr\/en\/actualite\/carbon-dioxide-phase-out-and-climate-negotiations-from-kyoto-to-belem\/","title":{"rendered":"Carbon dioxide removal and climate negotiations: from Kyoto to Bel\u00e9m"},"content":{"rendered":"
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With just a few days to go before the end of COP30 in Bel\u00e9m (Brazil), international negotiations are entering a decisive phase, no longer to determine the place of carbon dioxide removal (CCS) in the global climate framework, but to deploy a now-established framework in concrete terms. After three years of technical consolidation around the implementation of Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, the central issue is no longer the integration of EDC, but operational guarantees, financing mechanisms and the fair distribution of benefits for the countries of the South.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bel\u00e9m will also be the first COP to host a pavilion entirely dedicated to the CDR, initiated by CDR30<\/a>As a further sign of its growing institutional recognition, for AFEN this COP marks the beginning of the implementation phase: carbon removal is moving from the stage of technological promise to that of governance, traceability and structured financing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The question then becomes one of credibility on a large scale: how can we distinguish sustainable removal from conventional offsets? How can CDR technologies be integrated into Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) without diluting the integrity of the balance sheets? And how can the 300 billion USD\/year of the New Collective Quantified Target (NCQG) be effectively channelled into storage, monitoring and risk management infrastructures?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To fully grasp the issues at stake at Bel\u00e9m, we need to look back at the trajectory that has gradually placed the CDR at the heart of international climate grammar, a trajectory made up of trial and error, legal clarifications and major structural advances, now ready for implementation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Kyoto to Dubai: the gradual integration of the CDR into the international climate framework<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The integration of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) into international climate governance has begun with the Kyoto Protocol<\/a> (COP3, 1997). The LULUCF (Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry) scheme recognizes removals by forests and soils: Removal Units (RMU) can be counted when a LULUCF activity effectively removes CO\u2082 from the atmosphere. Each RMU is equivalent to one tonne of CO\u2082 removed, making it possible to increase the national quota of authorized emissions. This mechanism, although marginal on a global scale, has had a notable weight in the accounting of industrialized countries: during the first commitment period (2008-2012), credits from forest management represented<\/a> about 2.3 % of developed countries' total emissions, almost half their average reduction target of 4.4 % compared with 1990. In other words, a significant proportion of the \"reduction\" recorded (53%) came from forest carbon sinks rather than actual reductions in industrial emissions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In project mechanisms, the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM),<\/a> introduced by Article 12 of the Kyoto Protocol, has authorized afforestation and reforestation projects in developing countries since the early 2000s. These deliver temporary credits (tCER and lCER) to take account of the risk of non-permanence: the credits expire and must be replaced at maturity to compensate for any loss of stored carbon (in the event of fire or logging, for example). In practice, this opening has remained marginal: in 2012, fewer than 40 forestry projects had been registered<\/a>and only one had issued credits, so CDR share under Kyoto remained symbolic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Marrakech Accords (COP7, 2001) set out the technical details of the CDM and officially authorized forestry credits from afforestation\/reforestation projects, while establishing a strict framework: Annex I countries can only use these CER credits up to a maximum of 1 % of their 1990 emissions multiplied by five over the first commitment period (2008-2012). This ceiling reflects the Parties' prudence in the face of uncertainties about permanence and the risk of environmental non-integrity. The LULUCF framework therefore remains limited to \"natural sinks\", and \"technological\" CDR projects, such as capture and storage (CCS), are only admitted to the CDM after Durban (COP17, 2011), subject to post-project monitoring and liability in the event of leakage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The political turning point came with the Paris Agreement (COP21, 2015). Its Article 4<\/a> calls for a \"balance between anthropogenic emissions and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases\" to be achieved in the second half of the century. This formulation legally enshrines carbon neutrality and explicitly legitimizes CDR activities, whether natural or technological. Article 5 reinforces this framework by committing Parties to \"conserving and enhancing GHG sinks and reservoirs\", thus providing the accounting basis for including CDR in Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and in overall progress assessments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The following years consolidated this recognition. COP24 in Katowice (2018) adopts the Katowice Climate Package,<\/a> setting out the rules for transparency in post-2020 climate monitoring: states must report their emissions, removals and reduction actions in a harmonized way, creating the measurement and verification framework essential to the CDR. The IPCC special report on +1.5\u00b0C (2018) <\/a>points out, moreover, that all scenarios compatible with this objective require the removal of between 100 and 1,000 billion tonnes of CO\u2082 by 2100.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Glasgow (COP26, 2021), the Parties will finally finalize the rules for implementing Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, which defines carbon cooperation mechanisms. This new architecture is structured around two components:<\/p>\n\n\n\n