Who should pay for net-negative in the EU? Invite-only workshop

On 28 May 2025, Carbon Balance Initiative hosted a closed-door, high-level workshop to explore how Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) principles could be applied to Europe’s net-negative emissions challenge. As the EU prepares for a post-2050 era of net-negative targets, urgent questions arise: Who should bear responsibility for cleaning up excess CO₂? How can the polluter-pays principle be fairly applied to historical emissions? And what policy tools will be needed to deliver long-term carbon removal at scale?

This invitation-only session brought together policymakers, legal experts, academics, and industry actors to co-develop governance principles and policy pathways for climate overshoot responsibility. The workshop is part of Carbon Balance Initiative’s broader programme of work on embedding fairness, accountability, and effectiveness in future net-zero regulation.

Further work will be published by Carbon Balance Initiative on this topic.