Media Releases
Global CCS Institute’s Response to European Court of Auditor Special Report
25th October 2018
A new report from the European Court of Auditors, the EU’s independent external auditor, was launched today examining past EU funding programmes established to support carbon capture and storage (CCS) and innovative renewables.
Building on the lessons learned from the New Entrants’ Reserve 300 (NER300) and the European Energy Programmes for Recovery (EEPR), the auditors put forward a series of recommendations looking ahead to the launch of the Innovation Fund in 2021.
John Scowcroft, Executive Adviser for Europe at the Global CCS Institute, said it is important for the EU and other key stakeholders to build on the conclusions and observations made in this report and incorporate them as we move forward to accelerate the deployment of CCS in Europe to reach global climate targets.
“Despite previous efforts to accelerate the deployment of CCS in Europe, we are still lagging behind compared to other regions of the world. We hope that this report will help guide policy makers working on the Innovation fund to ensure it will help get CCS projects off the ground. The lessons learnt and the informed recommendations put forward by the European Court of Auditors should contribute to further improvements on how the European Union supports CCS in the near-future. Support funding mechanisms need to be designed to enable investment and development of full-scale CCS projects and transport and storage infrastructure.”
The European Court of Auditors report concluded that adverse investment conditions, including uncertainty in regulatory frameworks and policies, design of the NER300 not being sufficiently flexible and effective in reducing the risk of demonstration projects and finally issues with accountability and coordination were to blame for the limited success of the NER300 and EEPR in supporting CCS.
The Global CCS Institute was interviewed as part of the report given its role as manager of the European CCS Demonstration Network. The report has highlighted the important role of the Network in sharing knowledge gained on different CCS projects.
You can read the European Court of Auditors report here.