newsonline24

"The European Commission aims to strengthen Europe’s competitiveness, advance decarbonisation, and reduce dependence on fossil fuels."

For the waste management sector, the key issues are:

• how thermal waste treatment will be included in the EU Emissions Trading System
• how Europe intends to address the fact that 25% of its waste is still landfilled or ends up in dumps.

Gradual inclusion of waste incineration

Under the EU proposal, operators of municipal waste incineration plants would gradually become responsible for acquiring EU ETS allowances for their verified fossil CO₂ emissions.

Operators would be required to purchase allowances covering 25% of their verified fossil emissions in 2031. This share would increase to 50% in 2032, 75% in 2033, and reach 100% from 2034 onwards.

The proposal also keeps free emission allowances for eligible district heating plants, provides EU funding for carbon capture technologies, and allows auction revenues from emissions trading to support municipalities.

Unlike operators in other sectors covered by the emissions trading system, operators of waste treatment facilities have only limited influence over the quantity and carbon content of the waste they receive for treatment. Accordingly, the ongoing legislative process will take into account responsibility across the entire value chain in order to distribute costs in accordance with the polluter pays principle.

The Sacred Cow

While emissions from waste incineration will gradually become subject to carbon pricing, landfill emissions are not planned to be included in the EU ETS. Instead, the Commission proposes the introduction of mandatory monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) of methane emissions from landfills. These requirements would only apply from 2034 onwards. By that time, municipal waste incineration will already be fully subject to the compliance obligations of the EU ETS.

“This part of the proposal raises important questions” says Werner Bauer, founder and speaker of WasteCulture, a global network of professional expertise in waste solutions. “It is precisely here that there is considerable potential for medium-term reductions in CO₂-equivalent emissions, as demonstrated by the experience gained over the past two decades with the landfill ban in the D-A-CH countries.”

It has been scientifically established that:

• one tonne (Mg) of untreated waste disposed of in a landfill generates, on average, 0.05 tonnes of methane. Using the 20-year Global Warming Potential (GWP20, factor 86), this equals 4.25 tonnes of CO₂-equivalent emissions per tonne of waste. (Themelis, Bourtsalas).
• landfills are among the world’s largest anthropogenic sources of methane and are the dominant source of methane emissions within the waste sector. The waste sector is responsible for around one-fifth of global anthropogenic methane emissions. (Global Methane Pledge)
• according to UNEP, "…reducing methane is the strongest lever we have to slow climate change over the next 25 years." (Global Methane Assessment)

For many years, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has stressed that climate action cannot be delayed: "Urgent climate action can secure a liveable future for all." (IPCC Synthesis Report)

National Inventory Report (NIR) data show that CO₂ emissions increased between 2021 and 2022 in countries with high landfill rates, while they continued to decline in countries where landfilling has been phased out.

See the attached figure "Current Status of MSW Treatment" and table "Methane Emissions from European Landfills".

Delaying mandatory monitoring until 2034 ignores:

• years of scientific research on landfill emissions;
• the repeated warnings from climate experts (the IPCC is the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change);
• the existing evidence of the lasting positive impact that a clear landfill ban has on climate protection (for example, in the DACH countries); and
• the objective of the Global Methane Pledge (GMP), now endorsed by 159 countries and the European Union, to achieve a reduction of at least 30% in global methane emissions by 2030 compared with 2020.

Reducing methane emissions from landfills—ideally by phasing out landfilling—is one of the fastest ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Europe is warming at twice the global average rate. This year alone, more than 430,000 hectares of land have already burned across Europe, and more than 300,000 people have been forced to flee their homes because of wildfires. Decarbonisation must not stop at the chimneys of waste incineration plants. Reducing methane emissions from landfills is of crucial importance for slowing climate change.

The amendments proposed by the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union should ensure that countries receive financial support for developing sustainable waste management systems. “Using EU ETS revenues to help countries develop sustainable waste management systems would strengthen Europe’s competitiveness while delivering significant climate benefits.”, Werner Bauer concludes.