Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 13 June 2023
180. Deputy Richard Bruton asked the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications whether his Department has assigned work on preparing a regulatory regime for carbon capture and storage; and whether there is scope for the EU to promote the concept within the emission trading scheme to facilitate paying for carbon removal at the going carbon price. [27227/23]
View answerThe Climate Action Plan recognises the importance of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) as a developing means of mitigating emissions from hard to abate activities. Several Irish assessment studies on the issue have been conducted in recent years - SEAI, 2008: "Assessment of the Potential for Geological Storage of CO2 for the Island of Ireland", EPA, 2010: "An Assessment of the Potential for Geological Storage of CO2 in the Vicinity of Moneypoint, Co. Clare" and more recently the GSI 2014: “Irish Sea Carbon Capture and Storage Project”. Within the current Climate Action Plan there are actions to be progressed in 2024 to advance the policy position on CCS depending on feasibility assessments.
The EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) has features designed to incentivise CCS deployment. According to the directive underpinning the ETS, CO2 that is captured and safely stored is considered as “not emitted”. While introducing removals to an emission trading system poses significant policy and regulatory challenges, the revised EU ETS Directive, published in May 2023, introduces the possibility of paying for carbon removal in future. Article 30 is amended to include a commission report, and where appropriate, a legislative proposal and impact assessment, to assess how negative emissions resulting from greenhouse gases that are removed from the atmosphere and safely and permanently stored could be accounted for, and how those negative emissions could be covered by emissions trading.
