Abby L. Harvey
GHG Monitor
2/27/2015
The final version of the European Commission’s Energy Union Package, released this week, calls for a number of actions to be taken to drive innovation in carbon capture and storage technology. The package calls for, “A forward-looking approach to carbon capture and storage (CCS) and carbon capture and use (CCU) for the power and industrial sectors, which will be critical to reaching the 2050 climate objectives in a cost-effective way. This will require an enabling policy framework, including a reform of the Emissions Trading System and the new Innovation Fund, to increase business and investor clarity, which is needed to further develop this technology.”
Creating a clear investment signal is paramount to the success of the Energy Union, according to the document, and this will be done in part by reforming the Emissions Trading System. “A fully functioning internal energy market, providing efficient investment signals, is the best means to reduce the need for capacity mechanisms. The Commission has already set out guidance and rules to limit the detrimental effects of badly-designed, fragmented and uncoordinated public interventions,” the document says. “Environmentally harmful subsidies need to be phased out altogether. A reformed Emission Trading System will also play an important role in setting the right investment signals.”
The inclusion of CCS within the final version of the package was expected as it played a significant role in a draft released recently by the environmental group Bellona. According to the political guidelines of EC President Jean-Claude Juncker, the Energy Union has been developed because “Europe relies too heavily on fuel and gas imports. We need to reduce this dependency while keeping our energy market open to countries outside the EU. Therefore we need to pool our resources, combine our infrastructures and unite our negotiating power with third countries. We owe it to future generations to limit the impact of climate change and to keep energy affordable – by using more energy from renewable sources and becoming more energy efficient."
