U.N. Climate Talks May Decide On Carbon Capture
Date: 11-Dec-08
Country: POLAND
Author: Gerard Wynn
A worker poses for media at a truck before the first official run of the mini plant "Schwarze Pumpe" in Spremberg, September 9, 2008.
Photo: Hannibal Hanschke
POZNAN - U.N. climate talks in Poland may still release funds to curb carbon emissions from coal plants in the developing world, the U.N.'s top climate official said on Wednesday.
Earlier on Wednesday, the track of U.N. talks which vets scientific approaches for curbing greenhouse gases failed to reach any conclusion on approving the technology, called carbon capture and storage (CCS).
That technology is untested on a commercial scale, and involves trapping and then burying underground the carbon dioxide which power plants produce as a result of burning fossil fuels.
However, the head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, Yvo de Boer, said that environment ministers who will attend the talks on Thursday and Friday could still decide to allow power plants to earn carbon offsets from fitting CCS technology.
Under the U.N.-run clean development mechanism (CDM) rich countries can lay off their greenhouse gas emissions and meet climate targets by investing in cuts in developing nations.
"The...issue is the question of whether CCS, broadly in some form, should be allowed as a pilot or as a definite decision part of the CDM," de Boer told a news conference.
Earlier on Wednesday it had appeared a decision would be delayed.
"By default under the rules of procedure the issue has been deferred until May, June," a U.N. official, Grant Kirkman, told Reuters of that decision.
(Additional reporting by Alister Doyle; editing by Sue Thomas)
