UK Liberal MEP Chris Davies said during a 30 October conference in Brussels that he was "angry and frustrated" about a lack of willingness on the part of EU governments to pledge funds.
Davies is the European Parliament's rapporteur on a directive for a legal framework governing the geological storage of CO2, part of EU efforts to develop commercially viable carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies that could dramatically reduce CO2 emissions from coal-fired power stations. The MEP has been touring EU capitals during the past two weeks in an effort to drum up support for a plan to finance 12 CCS demonstration plants through the diversion of funds normally reserved for early entrants into the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS).
The plan, co-sponsored by an amendment to a Commission proposal to revise the EU ETS by Irish Christian Democrat MEP Avril Doyle, has received the backing of MEPs in Parliament's environment (ENVI) committee (EurActiv 08/10/08).
But while member states are said to agree on defining a legal framework for storing CO2 in geological formations on EU territory, reaction to the MEPs' proposed financing scheme has been lukewarm.
Most capitals, including Dublin and London, oppose the plan because they do not want Brussels to mandate how they should spend revenues obtained through the EU ETS. National governments could, however, sign off on a deal whereby the number of new entrants allowances is scaled down considerably, with the remaining monies coming from EU funds and private sector contributions, a Council source told EurActiv.
The Council is also wary of signing up to a mandatory emissions performance standard (EPS) for power stations, an idea tabled by Davies as a regulatory measure to support CCS or other CO2-reducing technologies. An EPS, as implemented in California, would limit the emissions of a power stations based on a limit of grams of CO2 per kilowatt hour (kwh).
While the Dutch government is pushing for an EPS of 350 grams per kwh, considerably tougher than Davies' proposal of 500 grams per kwh, most EU countries are showing "lack of enthusiasm" for the idea, Davies told EurActiv. States are concerned that they will not be able to fulfill growing demand for electricity if an EPS is set too low, he said.
But even if an EPS is not introduced as part of an agreement on the climate and energy package before the end of the year, "the issue is not going to go away" and is likely to be introduced in 2009 as part of the revision of the 1996 Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) Directive, which features a permit system to prevent and limit pollution from large-scale industrial installations, Davies said.
