London meeting makes CCS top priority

The meeting of the Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum (CSLF), a ministerial-level international climate change initiative whose membership includes 22 developed and developing nations, said this level of deployment – already endorsed by the G8 group of nations – was “vital” within the next year, but “many more” such projects will be needed in developed and developing countries by 2020 to help fight climate change.

CCS involves capturing the carbon dioxide emitted from the burning of fossil fuels, transporting it and storing it in a secure geological facility. If it can be shown to work on a commercial scale, international experts believe it could be one of the most effective means of managing and reducing man-made CO2 emissions.

UK Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband, who co-chaired yesterday’s meeting, said: “Today some of the world’s biggest coal consuming nations have shown business as usual on coal won't do.”

Coming weeks before international negotiations on a new global climate deal in Copenhagen, the CSLF’s endorsement is the strongest signal yet by developed and developing nations alike that CCS must be a key component of any international agreement governing carbon emissions.

At the meeting, the International Energy Agency presented a CCS roadmap that suggested 100 carbon capture demonstration projects would be needed by 2020 to combat climate change, and half of these should be in developing countries.

One of the main barriers to CCS development is finance, and ministers at the meeting yesterday agreed that support would be required for capacity building to enable developing countries to host demonstrations and for rapid CCS deployment once it is proven.

"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," said Miliband.

The UK Government has committed to the use of CCS in all newly commissioned power stations in Britain and has undertaken to deliver up to four demonstration projects using the technology. Towards this goal, the Government is currently running a £1 billion competition to fund a CCS plant in the UK.

Yesterday, Miliband denied plans for such a plant and the Government’s wider CCS policy would be affected by decisions in the last week by energy companies to pull out of plans to build two separate new coal-fired power stations in the UK.

Last week, E.ON blamed the recession and a fall in demand for electricity for its decision to shelve plans for a new power station at Kingsnorth in Kent, while this week, Danish giant Dong Energy said it was pulling out of Hunterston power station in Ayshire as a result of the unfavourable economics conditions.

Kingsnorth is one of the coal plants currently bidding for the Government’s £1 billion CCS competition.