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  • The Legal Issues Behind Stagnating CCS Deployment in the European Union – Is It the Member States’ Turn?

The Legal Issues Behind Stagnating CCS Deployment in the European Union – Is It the Member States’ Turn?

Year of Publication: 2017
Month of Publication: 9
Author(s): Viktor Weber
Research Area(s): Admiralty/Maritime Law
Name of Working Paper Series:

NUS Law Working Paper
NUS Centre for Maritime Law Working Paper

WPS Paper Number: CML-WPS-1708
Abstract:

Even though the European Union decided to promote carbon (dioxide) capture and storage (CCS) as part of its greenhouse gas emission mitigation portfolio and it enacted a directive eight years ago in order to speed up the safe deployment of this technology, there is no functioning project yet in the EU. While this is a well understood technology with an important emission reduction potential, it requires a legal regime which affords sufficient certainty to operators about their potential liabilities. However, the European legal framework is perceived as achieving the opposite effect. The present paper considers that a way to overcome the industry’s difficulties is more Member State action in the form of pragmatic interpretation and tailor-made agreements.