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CCS and Climate Change Mitigation

Carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) encompasses a suite of existing and emerging technologies for capture, transport, and storage of carbon dioxide (CO2) that together can be used to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel power generation and other industrial sources. Achieving cuts in energy-related CO2 emissions is critical to avoiding more than a 1.5 degree Celsius (°C) (2.7 degree Fahrenheit [° F]) rise in global temperatures by 2050 and the irreversible and damaging impacts such a temperature rise would have on people and ecosystems. The scale of the climate change challenge requires a portfolio of clean energy technologies and energy efficiency efforts, and most credible analyses project that CCS will have to play a substantial role in achieving the necessary emissions reductions (see Appendix 3).

CCS has been tested at a small scale, and there are a few industrial operations around the world, including in North America and Europe, which already capture and store small quantities of CO2 emissions underground. However, the technology has not yet been demonstrated at the scale required for application to commercial power and industrial plants. To address this gap, governments of many major economies have announced plans to support commercial-scale CCS demonstration projects that store more than 1 million metric tons of CO2 annually. Several are currently being built in Europe, China, Australia, and Canada, and many more are in the planning stages, including in the United States. Leading industrial nations, through the G8, have called for 20 such demonstration plants to be launched by 2010, with a view toward broad deployment by 2020.

Actions taken to demonstrate transformational clean energy technology over the next decade will define the solutions available to help solve the climate problem. Commercial-scale CCS demonstration projects are required to demonstrate whether or not the technology should play a major role in bridging today’s fossil fuel–driven world and tomorrow’s low- or zero-carbon economy. Yet, as with the introduction of many new technologies, proposed CCS projects have been met with mixed reactions from the public, and in particular from the local communities asked to host them.

Community Engagement in the CCS Context

Project developers and technical experts in CCS often cite the public as a “barrier” to CCS deployment, because decisions on whether individual projects move forward often significantly depend on the local community’s acceptance or opposition. The case studies from the United States, the Netherlands, and Australia featured in this report suggest that communities often have more concerns and questions about CCS than about more established industries and technologies. The guidelines for community engagement, however, were written with the belief that decisions on individual demonstration projects ultimately hinge on site-specific factors, including the needs of the local community. While much social science research around CCS to date has focused on gauging public attitudes toward the technology or on education and outreach best-practices for project developers (see Appendix 2), we focus instead on providing recommendations for creating a culture of effective, two-way community engagement around CCS projects.

In addition to project developers and host communities, there is a third partner essential to effective community engagement around CCS: regulators. In some countries, regulatory frameworks governing CCS development and deployment, including rules for community engagement, are already in place (see Appendix 1). In others, an environmental regulatory framework for CCS does not yet exist, and the advent of demonstration plants is forcing regulatory policymakers to make real-time decisions about how to ensure projects move forward safely, and what level of public participation should be required in the decisionmaking processes. The engagement around any one project, therefore, is contingent on the interactions of three primary groups: local decisionmakers (typically on behalf of those in the community), regulators, and project developers. All three groups are addressed in this report. It is important to underscore upfront, however, that effective community engagement is measured by the success of the engagement process, and is not contingent upon agreement between the project developer, regulator, and community on the outcome or the design of the CCS project. Nevertheless, effectively engaging communities can help move CCS projects forward and foster continuing constructive relationships between project developers and communities. Such relationships can help ensure that commercial-scale CCS demonstrations and any subsequent commercial projects progress in such a way that local economies, values, ecosystems, and people are respected, and the potential of the technology in helping to mitigate climate change is fully realized.