EC on the Geological Storage of Carbon Dioxide - Main contents

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dossier	COM(2023)657 - Implementation of Directive 2009/31/EC on the Geological Storage of Carbon Dioxide.
document	COM(2023)657
date	October 24, 2023

agreements under the ETS Innovation Fund for permanent storage in the EEA ¹⁵. Since the last implementation report, projects that have applied to the ETS Innovation Fund have planned to capture more than 20 million tonnes of CO₂, underlining the urgent need and the market opportunity to develop CO₂ storage sites in accordance with the CCS Directive in the European Economic Area.

3. CONCLUSIONS

The CCS Directive has been correctly applied across the reporting period in the EU Member States, which had submitted reports to the Commission by the end of July 2023.

Since the third implementation report in 2019, considerable progress has been reported regarding the deployment of CO₂ storage sites notably but not only in the North Sea region in the form of awarded (or soon to be awarded) exploration permits, which are an important step towards a storage permit.

EU Member States and Norway continue to support or plan to support in the near future, through their national programmes or funds, research and demonstration activities on CCS. Furthermore, many countries are involved in a number of European research and collaborative projects. The European Commission supports capture and storage of carbon dioxide with the ETS Innovation Fund, including full value chain projects combining capture, transport and storage.

1 Directive 2009/31/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on the geological storage of carbon dioxide and amending Council Directive 85/337/EEC, European Parliament and Council Directives 2000/60/EC, 2001/80/EC, 2004/35/EC, 2006/12/EC, 2008/1/EC and Regulation (EC) No 1013/2006, OJ L 140, 5.6.2009, p. 114-135

2 COM(2019) 566, Report from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on the Implementation of Directive 2009/31/EC on the Geological Storage of Carbon Dioxide

3 Forthcoming report by the EFTA Surveillance Authority under the CCS Directive for the EEA EFTA States

4 Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Greece, Spain, France, Cyprus, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta, Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Finland, Sweden, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway

5 Information based on previous reporting.

6 Ibid.

7 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=uriserv%3AOJ.L_.2022.152.01.0045.01.ENG&toc=OJ%3AL%3A2022%3A152%3ATOC

8 The EEA treaty and the incorporation of the two directives concerned in the EEA legal regime provides the necessary arrangement with EEA partners.

9 To transport CO₂ from one Member State to another within the European Economic Area, Member States that are parties to the London Protocol are still required to first deposit with the London Protocol Secretariat a formal declaration of provisional application of the 2009 amendment to the London Protocol, even if there are no additional issues to cover. Therefore, there is no need to sign a bilateral agreement or arrangement.

10 https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101094664

11 http://www.act-ccs.eu/

12 https://ccs4cee.eu/

13 https://pilotstrategy.eu/about-the-project

14 Directive 2001/80/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2001 on the limitation of emissions of certain pollutants into the air from large combustion plants

15 https://climate.ec.europa.eu/eu-action/funding-climate-action/innovation-fund/what-innovation-fund_en

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