Hilary Olson's blog

The University of Texas at Austin partnered with the Carbon Capture and Storage Association to host a Side Event at the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change/COP-18 in Doha, Qatar. The Side Event, held on the afternoon of November 27, 2012, focused on "CCS Capacity Building and Global Status: Educational Opportunities and Lessons Learned." 

Katherine Romanak of the Bureau of Economic Geology at UT Austin chaired the event, introducing the various speakers, leading discussions and fielding questions from the audience during the session. Luke Warren of the Carbon Capture and Storage Association spoke about the current global status of CCS and deployment needs, highlighting the importance of capacity building to successful deployment, specifically in developing countries.

We are excited to learn that the text of the Modalities and Procedures for CCS to be incorporated in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) were approved in Durban on Wednesday of this week (12/7/2011). The Carbon Capture and Storage Association reports that "The final decision text will be forwarded to the final plenary session later this week for adoption by the Parties although this is expected to be a formality. This is an important official recognition by the UNFCCC of the role of CCS in global climate change and sets an important precedent for the inclusion of CCS into other financing and technology support mechanisms. The Modalities and Procedures also establish the rules for managing CCS projects in developing countries that are supported by UN climate finance."

Many organizations and people have worked tirelessly over the last several years to make this happen. We await news at the end of this week for formal adoption by the Parties.

At the COP 16/ CMP 6 meeting in Cancun in 2010, CCS was made eligible as a Clean Development Mechanism (CDC) pending the resolution of a limited number of issues. Some of these issues include: transboundary issues, liability issues and monitoring. At the current meeting in Durban, various parties (negotiators for countries and groups of countries) are meeting as the SBSTA's (Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice) contact group on 'carbon dioxide capture and storage in geological formations as clean development mechanism project activities' to resolve these outstanding issues. This contact group is working on coming to an agreement for text that, according to Barry Jones, General Manager of the Global CCS Institute, puts CCS "on the cusp of being allowed to realize its global mitigation potential."

Dr. Katherine Romanak, of STORE and the Gulf Coast Carbon Center, and Erin Miller, graduate student at The University of Texas at Austin, attended the RINGOs meeting on Tuesday morning (Nov 29). Dr. Romanak is an expert on carbon storage and monitoring. Erin is working on potential Miocene storage offshore Texas in the Gulf of Mexico for her masters degree.

The RINGOs meetings include observers from Research and Independent Non-Governmental Organizations. Marilyn Averill, one of the chairs of the meeting, reminded attendees that the group does not advocate for particular positions, rather, the group's task is to ground the negotiations in sound science. Accordingly, a RINGOs statement covering broad technical topics is presented the last day in the high level segment. Katherine Romanak and I will be on the committee to draft the statement and she will contribute information on discussions pertaining to carbon capture and storage during the meeting.