Greenhouse gas neutrality in the EU and in Germany: The conception of a target architecture considering sinks

The aim of the research project is to provide a solid scientific basis for realigning the German government's target architecture, which can ideally also find its way into considerations at the European level. The focus is on the definition of a sustainable sink strategy that includes both natural and the currently unexplored contribution of technical negative emissions.

To this end, the project team compiles an overview of technical sinks in order to comprehensively present and expand the current state of knowledge on this topic. The following aspects are addressed:

1. Overview of different negative emission technologies and storage and their assessment;

2. Overview of CCS projects in operation and planning as well as geological storage capacities and identification of the potential contributions to technical carbon removal in the EU and Germany;

3. Criteria for environmentally sound negative emission technologies to ensure safe, long-term and environmentally sound carbon storage, especially with regard to dealing with hazards from potential CO2 leakage;

4. Comparison of energy and cost expenditures of selected applications.

The team uses these findings, together with the results of a scientific analysis and assessment of factors influencing the sink strategy, to develop possible sink development pathways to achieve and secure GHG neutrality in the EU and Germany. To this end, target corridors for the use of technical sinks for the EU and Germany are developed, taking into account the precautionary principle and in interaction with natural sinks.

This work results in proposals for a governance framework to ensure transparent implementation of the sinks strategy and integration into the target architecture, which can provide important contributions at both national and European level.