Visiting Scholars Forum

Martje Köppen (DPhil researcher at Oxford’s Faculty of Law) presents: "Slipping through the ‘Net’ – Carbon Dioxide Removal and the Net-Zero Consistency Obligation under EU Climate Law"

Slipping through the ‘Net’ – Carbon Dioxide Removal and the Net-Zero Consistency Obligation under EU Climate Law

Tuesday November 11, 2025
12:30 PM to 1:45 PM
WJW 417

Abstract
Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) plays an increasingly important role in how the EU aims to achieve its climate neutrality objective, which is both a legally binding objective, and an obligation with which all Union and all relevant Member States’ acts must be consistent. The presentation draws out, however, that EU law defines CDR in terms so open that different institutions can legitimately optimise for different understandings of climate neutrality. The presentation advances this argument through three observations: First, the legal definition of CDR under EU law is ambiguous and vague. It is ambiguous in that it conflates emission reductions and removals and obscures their distinction. This risks blurring their distinct roles, which, however, are needed to correctly account action taken to meet climate targets, including the 2030 target. Second, the presentation sheds light on some of the complex design decisions which impact how legislators quantify and qualify CDR’s role in net-climate targets. Analysing these design decisions in the ECL highlights that vagueness is a structural feature of the ECL’s climate neutrality objective and its intermediate targets for 2030 and 2040. While this may be intended to ensure flexibility in implementing the targets, vague targets, nevertheless, form unclear reference points for the required climate neutrality consistency assessment. Third, Union and Member State institutions enjoy wide discretion in determining the process and benchmark in aligning their measures with the ECL’s climate neutrality objective. This discretion may paradoxically foster inconsistent implementation of the ECL’s objective in the name of consistency. Crucially, this points to the underlying and even bigger legislative challenge: how to establish consistency across all Union and national measures with climate neutrality – opposed to merely assessing it.

Martje Köppen is a third year DPhil researcher, the Dean's Scholar at Oxford’s Faculty of Law and the Ann Kennedy Scholar of Lady Margaret Hall. Within the Oxford Sustainable Law Programme she researches the (contested) role of law in the 'Net Zero' transition. Next to her DPhil, since 2024, Martje has been working on the negative emissions strategy of the German government. Before joining Oxford in 2023, she worked for the German government on the conceptualisation and establishment of Carbon Contracts for Difference (CCfDs). Martje holds a German law degree from Bucerius Law School (Scholar of the German Government) and graduated as valedictorian from the MSc in Environmental and Energy Technology at Imperial College London, where she received the President's Trust Imperial Scholarship and the Turing Scholarship.