Decision due on carbon capture
December 8, 2008 12:00 AM
Key decisions affecting the future of one of the most promising technologies to combat climate change will be made this week.
EU governments pledged nearly 2 years ago to support construction by 2015 of up to 12 large scale carbon capture and storage demonstration projects.
The technology involves the capture of CO2 emissions from power plants and major industrial installations for permanent underground burial in rock formations that previously stored oil or natural gas. The International Energy Agency claims that by 2050 the use of CCS techniques could reduce CO2 emissions by as much as 50%.
But a subsidy of up to €10 billion will be required to develop the first schemes in Europe, and no source of funding has yet been confirmed.
A proposal tabled by the European Parliament´s negotiators, British Liberal Democrat MEP Chris Davies, and Irish Fine Gael MEP Avril Doyle, has been placed on the agenda of the Prime Ministers' summit to be held in Brussels later this week.
Special meetings at the European Parliament will then take place on Saturday to consider the outcome and determine whether the climate change legislation can be agreed before Christmas.
The MEPs are calling for 350 million allowances from the EU emissions trading scheme to be set aside to provide a guarantee of investment support for CCS projects that can be realised once CO2 is actually being stored.
Although welcomed by the British and Dutch governments the plan initially faced stiff resistance from a majority of Member States.
While the European Commission and the French Presidency have since accepted that the use of allowances provides an effective means of supporting the first CCS projects, EU ministers have to date agreed only to support the use of 100-200 million allowances.
Chris Davies said: ¨By Saturday evening we should know whether Europe is to take a lead in developing CCS technology or whether the governments will fail to match their warm words with real deeds.
¨The numbers that ministers are now putting on the table are not enough to enable proper testing of all the potential CCS technologies. This is not the time for a half-hearted approach. Europe is allowing too many of its tools for tackling change to be blunted, but rapid development of CCS could restore our cutting edge.¨
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