Strong North Sea cooperation needed to scale up carbon storage and use for climate neutrality – report

Countries around the North Sea in Europe must coordinate across borders to establish secure, efficient and scalable networks to transport, store and utilise carbon at the scale needed to meet long-term climate targets, said the think tank EPICO in a policy paper.

This cross-border network “needs to enable frictionless carbon flows between countries, support long-term financial viability through economies of scale, and ensure coherent carbon accounting systems across jurisdictions, including with major CO2 storage providers that lie outside the EU,” the think tank said. Countries would have to co-develop and implement robust pipeline and shipping networks, linking inland industrial centres to coastal terminals connected to offshore storage sites. At the same time, regulatory frameworks, permitting processes, and standards should be harmonised, the paper said.

The European Union has begun to look beyond pure CO2 reduction to tackle the large share of greenhouse gas emissions that are hard to cut. Achieving a net-zero economy will require the EU to capture emissions from certain industrial processes - for example cement - and store them underground, while addressing residual emissions in livestock farming by removing an equivalent amount from the atmosphere. This could happen through nature-based methods, such as reforestation, or technological solutions, like direct air capture (DAC).

However, Europe still faces significant hurdles before a well-functioning management system to store and use carbon emissions is in place, including costs to develop an EU-wide market and the necessary infrastructure. The EU presented an industrial carbon management strategy in 2024.

The North Sea has emerged as the leading option for large-scale, long-term CO2 storage, thanks to the region’s extensive experience with oil and gas extraction, and a vast amount of depleted oil and gas fields and saline aquifers. A pan-European CO2 transport network could require as much as 15,000 to 19,000 kilometres of pipeline infrastructure by 2050 to meet decarbonisation targets.