Environmental scan and issue awareness: risk management challenges for CCS

Long lists of issues relevant to carbon capture and storage projects have been provided in a number of sources, encompassing the broad categories of technological risks, health and environmental risks and societal risks. From these long lists a selection of ten major issues, broken down into three broad categories, has been made. The selected issues are: 1) government and industry factors (competent regulatory oversight; adequate risk assessment and risk management frameworks; and supportive public policy architecture); 2) environmental risk factors (adequate site-specific characterisations of geological formations for CCS storage sites worldwide; credible monitoring of storage site performance; and the possibility of leaking from storage); 3) socio-economic factors (tolerable economic costs; public perceptions of risks and benefits; information provision, effective communication and stakeholder engagement; and social and public acceptability, including the use of decision support mechanisms). The paper emphasises that what is unique about carbon capture and storage, considered as a major set of risk issues of global proportions, is how proactively these relevant major risks and risk factors have been identified and characterised by major institutional actors, especially industry and governments.