CDR Swiss Webinar – Exploring the Future of Land-Based CDR: Insights from Australia and Europe

srd
3. June 2025
5:16
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Samuel Eberenz und Nicole Blasko, Risk-Dialog Foundation

On Tuesday, May 20, the CDR Swiss community gathered for an insightful webinar exploring the potentials, policies, and ethical dimensions of land-based Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) methods in Australia and Europe. Our two speakers Justin Borevitz from the Australian National University and Malte Winkler from CDR-PoEt provided a cross-continental exchange on agro-ecological innovations, policy development, and the challenges involved in scaling sustainable CDR solutions.

Justin Borevitz, Professor at ANU’s Research School of Biology, focuses on regenerative farming and monitoring innovation in Australia. He shared insights into the country’s carbon budget and highlighted the role of regenerative agriculture in enhancing carbon storage in soils and vegetation. In the past years Australian farmers have been advancing agro-ecological practices that support both biological growth and long-term sequestration. In his talk he mentioned the development of high-resolution methods to estimate carbon sinks using remote sensing, modelling, and field data. While promising, these advanced tools are not yet widely used in carbon crediting systems, highlighting a gap between science and implementation. Lastly, Justin Borevitz also raised the potential of linking carbon credits to agricultural exports such as wheat and beef.

👉 You can download the slides from the first input here.

In the second input, Malte Winkler, Senior Researcher at the CDR-PoEt project, presented findings from the CDR-PoEt (Policy and Ethics) project, on the sequencing of policy instruments for scaling up CDR, as well as on ethics-based dimensions to assess policies, as well as CDR implementation. These dimensions combine criteria related to feasibility and desireability, to be considered in policy and decision making. The weighting and exact factors to evaluate according to these dimensions depens on the context and aim of a measure that is assessed. A central contribution from the project is a framework of 15 guiding questions designed to assess CDR policies across dimensions of feasibility and desirability. These dimensions include ethical considerations to guide decision-makers when developing policy instruments to control, promote, and regulate CDR. Eventually the guiding questions include incorporate various societal values and goals into the decision‐making process and enable transparent and traceable communication of decisions.

👉You can download the slides from the second input here.

You can access the full policy brief under:

👉 Holland-Cunz & Baatz (2025). "How Should Targeted Carbon Dioxide Removal Be Governed?" 15 Guiding Questions – Zenodo

In the discussion, we explored the complexity of two key links between the two inputs:

- Dimension 10 on Monitoring: Can reliable methods be applied to measure and validate the impact of the policy?

The state-of-art research on soil carbon monitoring presented by Justin is not yet applied for actual carbon crediting. Monitoring methods applied operationally are less sophisticated. It is noteworthy that improved methodology can shake trust in existing projects when showing that their carbon sink performance is probably less than claimed originally. This highlights the complexity of getting a grip on monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV), especially with regards to open systems such as in agriculture.

- Dimension 5 on Inclusive Decision-Making: Are the potentially affected groups and their representatives involved in the decision-making process, for example through participatory procedures?

Malte elaborated on the ideal of globally democratic process in policies tackling global climate change. In reality, an integration of local or regional, directly affected stakeholders can already be an ambitious task, entangled with political discourses and limited capacities, as the example of engaging with farmers (from small hold to largescale) and indigenous groups regarding agricultural practices in Australia show.

Finally, the discussion also touched on the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM)—a European policy not explicitly designed for CDR, but with significant indirect effects. By imposing carbon-related trade regulations, CBAM could affect Australian agricultural exporters, influencing land management decisions and CDR strategies even outside EU borders. This interplay reflects broader trends toward climate-related protectionism and raises important questions about international fairness and cooperation.

Explore CBAM here: European Commission – CBAM

We thank our speakers and participants for their invaluable contributions and look forward to continuing this important conversation.