In June 2009, the European Union adopted its 'Climate and Energy Package', which contains a series of measures to drive Member States' legal and policy strategies to achieve the EU's emissions reduction targets. Directive 31/2009/EC on the geological storage of carbon dioxide ('CCS Directive') was adopted as an element of this Package and represents one of the first CCS-dedicated legal frameworks in the world. The Directive requires all EU Member States to adopt domestic measures to implement its provisions within national law ('transposition') by 25 June 2011. The European Commission is responsible for monitoring its correct implementation into Member States' national law.
The Project
The Carbon Capture Legal Programme launched the 'EU Case Studies Project' in January 2011. The project analyses the implementation process of the CCS Directive in selected European jurisdictions-the United Kingdom, Germany, Poland, Romania, Spain, and Norway. Each jurisdiction, for different reasons, provides an example of distinct approaches to the transposition and to CCS in general.
The objective of the Project is to identify some of the more subtle nuances in different legal cultures and to understand the rationale for national decisions in specific aspects of the implementation of the Directive within national legal regimes. In particular, the focus is on those areas where the Directive leaves room for Member States' discretion or is ambiguous or silent. In conjunction with the more detailed provisions and legal choices, the Project also aims to highlight the national policy and political context within which the legal and regulatory framework for CCS has emerged. The studies are deliberately designed to move beyond formal transposition measures to reveal more of the underlying dynamics and tensions involved in national implementation. Such elements are often crucial in driving domestic legal developments. The way in which EU Directives are implemented often reflect distinct legal and administrative traditions, and the case studies seek to present these in order to provide better insights on the development of CCS regulation.
The result of the project is a series of reports from the six jurisdictions based on key legal and policy questions and on a critical reading of the CCS Directive. The CCLP is coordinating the overall research and has carried out the UK case study. Independent experts have been commissioned to carry out research in Germany, Poland, Romania, Spain, and Norway.
CCLP Workshop
'Implementing the EU CO2 Storage Directive: Challenges and Opportunities'
The CCLP - in association with the Natural Resources Law Group at the University of Oslo - hosted a workshop in London on 7 November 2011 on the transposition of the CCS Directive. The case study reports were launched at this event. This interactive workshop provided the opportunity to analyse the key issues and opportunities associated with the transposition process.
In the morning session, the authors of the case studies presented their conclusions for the first time and discussed their findings. The afternoon session examined in more detail questions of public engagement, looking at both practical examples and asking the extent to which law and legal procedures can or cannot assist the process. The CCS Directive was then placed in a broader context, and the extent to which it represents an effective regulatory model to follow was considered.
The workshop was designed to be relevant to key stakeholders from academia, industry, government, and non-governmental organizations and has attracted a first-rate group of speakers and discussants.
Norway
Authors: Hans Christian Bugge and André Lamark Ueland
Poland
Author: Jerzy Jendrózka The Polish report has been delayed due to pending legislative developments and will be available in due course.
Author Biographies
Chiara Armeni is an environmental lawyer and has been a Research Associate with the University College London Carbon Capture Legal Programme (CCLP) since 2009. She is currently Deputy Director of the CCLP. Since 2010 she has been leading the CCLP project on the implementation of the CCS Directive in selected European countries. Chiara's main research interests lie in international and European environmental law, with a special focus on carbon capture and storage and the law and policy of climate change.
Ludwig Krämer studied law and history in Kiel, Munich and Paris. He served as a judge at the Landgericht Kiel from 1969 to 2004. From 1972 to 2004, he was delegated to the European Commission in Brussels, where he worked in the Environmental Directorate General. He was successively Head of Unit of legal affairs, of waste management and of environmental governance. From 2001 to 2004 he was responsible for transposing the provisions of the Aarhus Convention into EU legislation. In this capacity he represented the EU in the different bodies of the Convention, including at the First Meeting of the Contracting Parties.
Ludwig Krämer is Doctor of Law (University Hamburg). He is a visiting professor at University College London. He was an honorary professor at the Universities of Bremen, Copenhagen and Ghent, lecturer at the College of Europe in Bruges, and has lectured at about fifty universities in Europe and North America. He has published about twenty books and more than 200 articles on EU environmental law.
At present he is co-founder and partner of Derecho y Medio Ambiente (Law and Environment), an environmental consultancy firm in Madrid.
Mónika Józon (PhD) is Associate Professor of European Law at Corvinus University of Budapest and visiting lecturer at Sapientia-Hungarian University of Transylvania, Romania. She has more than 10 years' experience in legal research projects in Romania, within the framework of EU funded technical assistance projects aimed at legal approximation and institutional reform in Romania, including environmental law and policies. Her main research area is the unification of private law in Europe and the regulatory policy of the Internal Market. She is Senior Humboldt Research Fellow (September 2009-May 2011) at the Max Planck Institute of Comparative and International Private Law (Hamburg), Project leader of the Common Core of European Private Law (Turin) and board member of the International Association of Consumer Law. She joined the Avosetta Group in 2006.
Jerzy Jendrózka is the Managing Partner of Jendroska Jerzmanski Bar & Partners, which is an environmental law firm based in Poland; and Adjunct Professor and Director of European Environmental Law Postgraduate Studies at Opole University. He has been heavily involved in drafting most of the environmental legislation in Poland since 1990. He has held a number of official positions, including Member of the National EIA Commission (since 1994), permanent legal expert of the Parliamentary Environment Commission (since 1996), Vice-chair of the governmental GMO Commission (2002-2006) and Member of the Committee "Man and the Environment" of the Polish Academy of Sciences (2003-2007). Since 1995 he has represented the Government of Poland in various international processes, including serving as a Vice-chair of the UNECE Aarhus Convention negotiations (1996-1998) and of the UNECE SEA Protocol negotiations (2000-2002). Currently he serves as an arbitrator at the Permanent Court of Arbitrage in The Hague (since 2002) and a member of the Compliance Committee of the Aarhus Convention (since 2006).
Hans Christian Bugge is Professor of Environmental Law, Faculty of Law, University of Oslo. Before becoming an academic lawyer in 1991, he held senior positions in Norway's Ministry of Environment (1972-1982) and was Secretary General of Norway's Save the Children organisation (1982-1991). He served as State Secretary for Development Cooperation (1986-1987) and as personal advisor to Norway's Prime Minister, Mrs Gro Harlem Brundtland, in her work as chair of the World Commission on Environment and Development.
André Lamark Ueland (LLM) is a Researcher at the Faculty of Law, University of Oslo.
Preparatory Materials
Selected documents created to guide the drafting of the reports: