In an international ministerial meeting held in London, the European Commission, along with leaders from 22 world countries, met to explore ways to accelerate the commercialisation of carbon capture and storage (CCS). The ministers from countries such as the UK, Norway, the US, Australia, Brazil and China, focused on the development and deployment of CCS technologies.
In the meeting of the Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum (CSLF), Ed Miliband, the UK Energy and Climate Change secretary, said: “There’s agreement that we need countries around the world to finance demonstrations, as we are doing in the UK, we need technology co-operation for know-how and capacity building and a financing agreement at Copenhagen which can drive CCS forwards in developing countries.”
The actions of the forum will be integrated in the global energy and climate agenda including the process towards the UN Framework Convention for Climate Change.
The ministers also considered a new International Energy Agency (IEA) CCS roadmap that suggests 100 CCS demonstration projects are needed by 2020 to combat climate change, and half of these should be in developing countries.
They agreed that more than 20 industrial scale CCS demonstrations could be needed by 2020, including in developing countries, with knowledge sharing between projects. Support for capacity building to enable developing countries to host demonstrations and for rapid CCS deployment is one of the main outcomes of the meeting.
Separately, the European Union has developed a package of legal, financial and industrial support elements designed in successive initiatives approved since December 2007 by the European Council.
Firstly, the CCS Directive provided for a framework which helps ensure public confidence in CCS installations and gives legal certainty to operators. Secondly, the treatment of CCS in environmental state aid guidelines and emissions has been clarified in the context of the European Emission Trading Scheme. Thirdly, the financing of demonstration projects is being supported by EUR1.05 billion from the European Economic Recovery Plan (EERP).
On the industrial side, the commission has prepared for a project network of European early-movers involved in large-scale CCS demonstration projects.
The CSLF is an international climate change initiative focussed on the development of technologies for the separation and capture of carbon dioxide (CO2), its transport and long-term safe storage. It is currently comprised of 23 members: 22 countries including China, the US, Australia, Canada, South Africa, and the UK, along with the European Commission.