Humanity is facing an interlinked biodiversity and climate crisis. Averting catastrophe and ensuring our future sustainability requires that we tackle these two environmental challenges simultaneously: efforts towards improving biodiversity and enhancing biogenic sequestration must go hand in hand.

Carbon farming activities under the EU’s Carbon Removals and Carbon Farming Framework (CRCF) are supposed to protect and restore ecosystems. However, the current draft methodologies for these activities do not give it that central role. Instead, carbon sequestration is favoured over biodiversity concerns. 

Using the most recent drafts of those methodologies (dated October 2024), this briefing delves deeper into how biodiversity, specifically the mandatory co-benefits, is being handled in the carbon farming methodologies, with a particular focus on the agriculture methodology.