CCS Side-events in the second week of COP26

There were significant side-events on CCS in the second week. The first was organised by the Global CCS Institute, on CCS in the Green Transition. On the panel was Guloren Turan of the Institute, Professor Jim Skea, IPCC Co-chair of WGIII, Ruth Herbert of CCSA, Jonas Helseth of Bellona, and myself. Guloren presented the Institute's recent Global Status Report as a scene-setter, and the IPCC perspectives on CCS and the wider picture were most interesting to discuss.

We organised two side-events on CCS during the second week in COP26. The first was on CCS in Nigeria, Trinidad and Tobago, Indonesia, and India. This was organised with the University of Texas and hosted very kindly by Bellona. The aim was to share the new developments in these countries and hence encourage "South-South" knowledge transfer. We heard from Dr Victor Richard Osu, Nigeria Office of the Vice President, from Professor Raffie Hosein, University of the West Indies in Trinidad and Tobago, our member Dr Rachmat Sule, Institute Technology Bandung, Indonesia, and Dr Vaibhav Chaturvedi, Council on Energy, Environment and Water, India. Indonesia, Trinidad and Tobago, and Nigeria are all making progress on CCS in their countries. The room was full and some of the audience stayed afterwards for further discussions, which is always a good sign.

The second event was the official UNFCCC Side-event on CCS Decarbonising industries in the UK, US, Canada and Nigeria. This was organised by ourselves with the University of Texas, CCSA, the International CCS Knowledge Centre and Bellona. We heard from Dr Jennifer Wilcox, Principal Deputy Assistance Secretary, US DOE, Ruth Herbert, CCSA, Dr Katherine Romanak, University of Texas, Dr Victor Richard Osu, Nigeria Office of the Vice President, Eivind Berstad, Bellona, and Beth Valiaho, International CCS Knowledge Centre. Beth has just had a baby (congratulations!) so Niall Mac Dowell attended to answer questions for her. The attendance was over 50 people, again showing the continuing interest in CCS at COPs. The event got good coverage from the COP media service from IISD, providing a nice summary, see Highlights and images of main proceedings for 11 November 2021 (iisd.org)

Now the COP should be coming to its conclusions, but is expected to run-over into the weekend.

Tim Dixon