Helping Africa by Including CCS in CDMs

The Energy Research Center of the Netherlands has issued a paper that details progress on including CO2 capture and storage (CCS) in the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). While CCS is still debated, substantial results on the process in the CDM has been outlined based on three findings: the outcomes of a capacity building effort in Africa; the development of new and improved methodologies for hypothetical CCS projects; and a new estimate of the market impact of CCS natural gas operations on the CDM.

Problems that hinder the inclusion of CCS in the CDM are mainly technical. How to account for the emission reductions, how to estimate risks of future leakage, and how to establish the project boundary are a few examples of reasons behind its inability to make progress. One of the authors, Heleen de Coninck said that other considerations play a major role such as the relative immaturity of CCS and hence its perceived unsuitability for deployment under the CDM; crowding out of other project types from the CDM market; and finally, CCS should be developed and tested in developed countries before implementing it under the CDM.

Two workshops were held in September 2007 in Dakar, Senegal and Gaborone, Botswana. These conferences brought to surface the issue that Africa’s priority is economic development. If insufficient incentives are given, CCS may increase the cost of electricity to customers causing a concern among participants. In addition, a stable method to account for seepage and GHG reduction levels would have to be instituted.

However, what can CCS mean for Africa? Well, CDM is the only mechanism currently that has the potential to give incentives to use CCS in Africa. The paper stresses the importance of this and said it should be considered by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Early demonstration projects throughout the continent could help build more confidence in the technology, as well as bringing more investment to Africa. The report said more capacity building on CCS is necessary, but also developing a detailed atlas of suitable storage sites in Africa would be beneficial.