Legal and Regulatory Developments on CCS

Abstract Since IPCC Special Report on Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage ( IPCC, 2005 ) was published there have been significant developments in international, regional and national law and regulations. The Special Report, being written in 2003–2005, reflected the relatively early nature of development of regulations pertaining to CCS and, in particular, geologic storage. The principle area of focus in the Special Report was marine treaties – namely the Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic (OSPAR) and the London Convention – as they had been the focus of prior legal analysis and the parties to the treaties had begun their own consideration of the topic. Both marine treaties proceeded to remove their prohibitions on CO2 geological storage, the London Convention in 2006 and OSPAR in 2007 ( IMO, 2006a , OSPAR, 2007c ). Another significant influence at this time was the work being undertaken to develop a CCS-focused chapter in the IPCC Guidelines for GHG Inventories ( IPCC, 2006a ). These guidelines set out how to undertake and report the GHG performance of CCS, creating a methodology for geological storage assessment and report that became the basis for subsequent CCS regulations. In the years following, there were numerous developments at the national and regional levels. For example, the EU CCS Directive was developed in 2007 and 2008 ( EC, 2009a ), to create an enabling framework for CCS, to remove barriers and allow it to proceed but also to ensure environmental protection. The Directive was adopted in 2009, along with a revision of the EU’s Emission Trading Directive ( EC, 2009a ) which brought CCS into the EU’s emissions trading scheme. CCS-specific laws and regulations have also been established at both the federal and state levels in the United States, and the commonwealth and state levels in Australia. The other major development in international law and regulations since the Special Report is the inclusion of CCS into the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) under the UNFCCC’s Kyoto Protocol. This took several years, from 2005 to 2011, but in 2011 a new set of rules specific to CCS were developed and adopted which allows CCS to be a legitimate project activity under the CDM for developing countries to use ( UNFCCC, 2011b ). It is widely anticipated that future mechanisms developed under the UNFCCC and allowing CCS will follow the principles established by these CCS CDM modalities and procedures. These international developments potentially impact 180 countries. This paper provides a descriptive review of the key legal and regulatory developments since 2005, with a particular focus on the international developments. It also briefly reviews the application of permitting regimes to new CCS projects in the US and EU (Netherlands).