MEPs call for 350 million carbon allowances to fund CCS

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MEPs are calling for 350 million allowances from the EU emissions trading scheme to be set aside to support investment for carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects.

The appeal came ahead of the Prime Ministers’ summit to be held in Brussels tomorrow, where the proposal, tabled by the European Parliament’s CCS negotiators, has been placed on the agenda.

In October MEPs voted “yes” to secure 10 billion euros in funding that will required to support CCS (), but so far no source of funding has been confirmed.

The EU Parliament’s CCS negotiators Liberal Democrat MEP Chris Davies and Irish Fine Gael MEP Avril Doyle are leading the call for the investment to come from 350 million carbon trading allowances.

To date, EU ministers have only agreed to support the use of 100-200 million allowances, to be realised once the carbon dioxide is being stored, but the EU Parliament says this amount not sufficient to support the development of CCS technology.

Mr Davies said yesterday: “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,” he added.

But while the proposals were welcomed by the British and Dutch governments, the plan initially faced resistance from the majority of EU Member States.

The European Commission and the French Presidency have since accepted that the use of allowances provides an effective means of support the first CCS projects.

After the Prime Ministers have reached a decision on the proposals, the European Parliament will hold special meetings on Saturday to consider the outcome and determine whether climate change legislation can be agreed before Christmas.
CCS

Carbon capture and storage is the technology that captures carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and major industrial installations and stores it in permanent underground rock formations that previously stored oil or natural gas.

The International Energy Agency claims that by 2050 the use of CCS techniques could reduce carbon dioxide emissions by as much as 50%.

Two years ago European governments pledged to support the construction of 12 large scale CCS demonstration projects, to be complete by 2015.

The UK government has already drawn up a shortlist of four power stations, which includes the proposed Kingsnorth coal-fired power station, to be the British demonstration project ().

However last month one of the shortlisted entrants, BP, pulled out of the shortlist as the company terminated both its CCS and wind commitments in the UK.