CCUS: Do Europe’s citizens have a say?

As ambition for Carbon Capture, Utilisation, and Storage (CCUS) deployment ramps up across the world, we urgently need a new perspective on how society can be actively involved in the next steps, writes Dr. Moisés Covarrubias.

Dr Moisés Covarrubias is a CCUS and Decarbonisation Policy researcher at the C4U Project, as well as a Research Fellow in the Earth System Governance Project Network.

While controversial, there is an increasing consensus in policy circles that the large-scale deployment of Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) is required to achieve climate neutrality by 2050. The most recent evidence of this emerged last Monday, November 27th, as five major European countries (Denmark, Germany, France, Netherlands and Sweden) signed the Aalborg Declaration, calling for the development of a European market for CCUS.

Europe needs CCUS in order to meet its climate targets, align with the Paris Agreement, and achieve the expected 55% reduction in emissions by 2030. This is an unprecedented challenge. To achieve it, rapid decisions will have to be made which will drastically reshape everyday life for Europeans. In preparation for this, we urgently need a new way of making decisions on our future, as well as on the role that Carbon Capture may have in it.

Engagement with society is a missing link

Effective greenhouse gas abatement strategies are crucial for achieving net-zero goals in time – and CCUS is increasingly recognised as one of the key technologies in the required portfolio. Over the past year, the European Commission has done extensive public consultations to build its Industrial Carbon Management Strategy, expected in early 2024. This consultation process will shape the way that Europe understands and utilises these technologies in the future – thus, it will shape a crucial cornerstone of our climate ambitions.

I have been regularly engaged in the public consultations over the EU’s Industrial Carbon Management strategy – contributing to the European Commission’s Call for Evidence on carbon management, as well as participating in the CCUS Forum hosted on November 27th–28th, where the Aalborg Declaration was announced.

Throughout these consultations, social considerations have been almost non-existent. Instead, the main focus has been on how public awareness can be increased to encourage greater societal acceptance of the technology – that is, to encourage society to accept these technologies, when decisions around them have already been made. This is a limited perspective on the potential of public participation to make decisions on carbon capture implementation.

Societal acceptance already implies a top-down and one-sided approach, covered up as bottom-up. While seemingly collaborative, this essentially means making society accept decisions that have already been made. Today, this is the predominant method when taking decisions around society and technology.

Yet the implementation of CCUS – a radical, and admittedly controversial climate mitigation technology – should be a discussion involving everyone. This is particularly the case as deploying CCUS may involve publicly subsidising the high up-front costs of the industries requiring this technology. It is more the case today, when there are growing concerns over CCUS being used to greenwash emission-intensive industries, including oil and gas – that is, being used as an excuse for energy-intensive industries to prolong their reliance on fossil fuels, avoiding any real decarbonisation of their production.

Rather than encouraging society to accept already-made decisions, we require a renewed focus on societal engagement – on building a mutual, consensual relationship to decide on the technologies that will shape our future over the next 27 years. Ensuring this engagement is a key determinant to build societal trust in the transition to net-zero and, ultimately, to shaping the future of CCS in the European Union.

Policymakers need to take a bold step forward

The EU’s Industrial Carbon Management Strategy will be published in early 2024. This, added to the Aalborg Declaration, signals Europe’s growing commitment to encouraging the deployment of carbon capture technologies.

Admittedly, such policy and economic incentives for CCUS are necessary steps to foster Europe’s transition to net-zero. Yet investing in societal trust should also be a key priority for European policymakers. As part of the C4U project, funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme, we seek to construct a paradigm shift in policy and decision-making practices on CCUS deployment in Europe.

Our research has found that early, proactive, and consistent engagement with the public is a key requirement to building trust on the net-zero transition. This is no easy feat. Foremost, we require transparent and credible communications on decarbonisation technologies – and on industry’s genuine, proactive commitment to reducing their emissions through these technologies, actively addressing greenwashing concerns.

Also crucial is consistent engagement with affected (and soon to be affected) communities, as well as advancing policies that can ensure just transitions for the communities involved in these industries – e.g. Article 18 of the Net Zero Industry Act (NZIA), which seeks to solidify the responsibility of authorised oil and gas producers to contribute to CCUS deployment. These are all pivotal actions for building trust and fast-tracking the transition to net-zero in a just, consensual manner.

While crucial, these are only the first steps in a much lengthier process. It is only through a durable commitment to societal engagement that we can ensure a just transition in time with our net-zero targets. As world leaders gather at COP28 and discuss the future of carbon management technologies throughout the coming week, we can only hope that renewed commitments to societal engagement will find a way forward.