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

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 (so-called Carbon Capture and Storage Directive – hereinafter ‘CCS Directive’) was adopted on 23 April 2009 together with other parts of the 2009 climate-energy package.

The CCS Directive establishes a legal framework for the environmentally safe geological storage of carbon dioxide (CO2) to contribute to mitigating climate change. The CCS Directive aims to ensure that there is no significant risk of leakage of CO2 or damage to health or the environment, and to prevent any adverse effects on the security of the transport network or storage sites. The Directive lays down requirements covering the entire lifetime of a storage site. It also contains provisions on the capture and transport components of CCS, though these activities are covered mainly by existing EU environmental legislation, such as the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Directive or the Industrial Emissions Directive, in conjunction with amendments introduced by the CCS Directive. Seven pieces of EU environmental legislation are amended via Articles 31 to 37, inter alia in order to remove legal barriers to geological storage of CO2.

Article 27(1) of the CCS Directive requires the Member States to submit to the Commission a report on the implementation of the Directive, drawn up on the basis of a questionnaire adopted by the Commission. The Member States’ reports, which were delivered to the Commission between July 2011 and April 2013, fed into this first report from the Commission on the implementation of the CCS Directive, as required by its Article 38(1).

• Primary Source

EUR-Lex: COM(2014)99: Follow the progress of this report through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2014:099:FIN

ESO: Background information: Website: Carbon Capture and Geological Storage (CCS) http://www.europeansources.info/record/website-carbon-capture-and-geological-storage-ccs/

ESO: Background information: Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on the Future of Carbon Capture and Storage in Europe http://www.europeansources.info/record/communication-from-the-commission-to-the-european-parliament-the-council-the-european-economic-and-social-committee-and-the-committee-of-the-regions-on-the-future-of-carbon-capture-and-storage-in-eu/

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