  The European Union (EU) is committed to achieving carbon neutrality by 2050.
This requires capturing CO2, eventually transporting it to different regions,
to then either convert it into valuable products or sequester it underground.
While the target is set for the EU as a whole, a significant part of the
governance and strategy remains in the individual member states. Using the
networked sector-coupled model PyPSA-Eur, we explored the impacts of imposing
net-zero emissions globally for the entire EU versus imposing carbon neutrality
for each country. Under a global CO2 target, some countries remain net CO2
emitters, while others become net CO2 absorbers. Forcing net-zero emissions in
every country increases system cost by 1.4%, demands varied CO2 prices, and
triggers higher investment in direct air capture and renewable capacities. In
both scenarios, a significant portion of the captured CO2 is transported across
Europe either directly in CO2 pipelines or indirectly via solid biomass or
synthetic methane gas, methanol, and oil.
