Within Europe there is a culmination of four issues that currently helps promote policy decisions necessary to ensure a future commercial role for CO2 in the North Sea and in the North European arena.  These are;

* Declining oil and gas production from the North Sea Continental Shelf (NCS).

* Increasing dependence upon energy imports.

* Commitment to reduce GHG emissions in accord with Kyoto Protocol.

* Emerging and significant Emissions Trading Scheme

We briefly explain how these three aspects inter-relate in the following sub-sections.

Below you can download a powerpoint presentation entitled 'A European Perspective on CO2'.  This was originally given as invited lecture at the Seventh Annual CO2 Conference, Midland, Texas in December 2001.  (Many of the slides would still appear to be valid in 2004!)

A more up to date perspective is provided in the paper (20 pages) entitled 'Mechanisms and Incentives to Promote the Use and Storage of CO2 in the North Sea'. This was also published in the European Energy Law Report I, Eds. Roggenkamp, M.M. and Hammer, U., ISBN 90-5095-370-0 by Intersentia, Antwerp - Oxford, 2004.