CCUS narratives and why they matter
Carbon capture, utilisation, and storage (CCUS) is a suite of technologies to capture, transport, and utilise carbon dioxide (CO2) or store it underground. CCUS has emerged internationally as a key technical measure for climate change mitigation, in particular for reducing the amount of CO2 ultimately emitted into the atmosphere by industries such as cement production and oil refining. These industries have much fewer viable options than others to deeply reduce their emissions at the pace needed to stay competitive in a low-carbon world. Capturing a portion of their emissions will therefore be unavoidable to reach net zero.
Despite the urgency of deploying CCUS at a large scale in the European Union (EU), the project pipeline is lagging significantly. As large, complex projects with long lead times, CCUS is fraught with regulatory, financing, and infrastructure challenges–but one lesser-discussed challenge which may prove to be a key bottleneck is social resistance. Particularly for CCUS projects where the CO2 is ultimately stored underground, public concerns over real or merely perceived risks, poorly addressed by institutions or project developers, have sometimes led to the abandonment or severe delay of projects. Given the current turmoil faced by heavy industry and Europe’s ambitious CCUS targets for 2030, understanding the dynamics of public opinion about these technologies is a condition for their success.
This is where we come to the role of narratives. Narratives are essentially “stories” developed around a particular issue, where events unfold as part of a plot, complete with characters, symbols, and dramatic moments. They are universally important elements of human cognition, highly persuasive compared to mere statement of facts, and used on a regular basis to convince an audience (sometimes subtly) to adopt a certain position or opinion. While research is still emerging, there is evidence that narratives around CCUS are evolving as the subject enters the public discussion, including in the media. Besides, given the current very low level of public awareness about CCUS, public opinion is likely to be much more volatile and susceptible to persuasion by strong narratives, even if they are misinformed.
Stories of CCS across Europe
Our research on has found that CCUS narratives vary significantly across countries. A distinct difference emerges between North-Western Europe and South-Eastern Europe (SEE), with many more media articles, institutional statements and emergent stories in the former, and not just dry facts. Indeed, North-Western Europe is much more advanced in deploying CCUS, and the subject has been part of the public debate for longer than in South-Eastern Europe.
This does not mean that CCUS will stay out of the public realm for much longer in SEE. In fact, media reporting on CCUS has increased significantly in recent years, and is shifting from neutral and informative tones, with little original content, to actual narratives portraying heroes, villains, conspiracies, and positions on CCUS. Sensationalism is not absent either: a “dream team” heroically is innovating on CCUS in Greece, while in Romania CCUS would just “bury [the country] in toxins.” While North-Western European media is more sober, it also politicises the topic, for example linking CCUS to “climate offenders” conspiring with the Danish government for tax breaks.
CCUS is still much less talked about than other topics of the clean energy transition, such as renewable energy or electric vehicles, yet European narratives around it are replete with warning signs that social resistance is not negligible. First, institutions shift their narratives depending on the mot du jour of public concern: whereas CCUS stories used to be almost exclusively in the context of climate change, they are now increasingly about economic and job security (i.e., helping industries stay competitive by relieving them of the financial pressure of their CO2 emissions). The issue is that CCUS is expensive, regulation around it is still catching up, and especially in SEE the political commitment around it is nowhere near what it needs to be. If CCUS continues to be portrayed by institutions in a “techno-optimistic” way, promising economic revival but failing to create an enabling environment to deploy it in the first place, this risks a harder fall from grace in terms of public trust when the promised benefits fail to materialise. Denmark is an example of good practice, having implemented regulation, funding, and infrastructure planning at a rapid pace, so that its increasingly confident institutional narratives have real substance.
Second, the media will play a very important role in shaping public opinion, especially in countries where institutions withdraw or waver in response to media criticism. Across all the analysed countries, there was a variation in how likely the media was to create CCUS stories. For example, the Danish media are much more informative and neutral than the Romanian or the Greek media, use more scientific evidence, and are better-anchored due to the relative transparency of government actors on the topic. On the other hand, in countries lacking institutional positioning on CCUS and healthy debate by government actors, the media become the only source of information (and indeed, more trusted than government), and in many cases will create the stories of CCUS that serve its readership expectations, including by politicising the topic and imbuing it with sensationalism. Thus, rather than being seen as a technology with its own set of benefits, costs, and risks, CCUS risks being etched into the public imagination as a villain, a conspiracy, or an outright lie.
What does the future hold?
The future of CCUS in Europe depends on multiple factors, and the stories developing around it are just one piece of the puzzle. However, ignoring the narratives risks missing the opportunity to anticipate public opinion and concerns and engage effectively in transparent debate about the implications of deploying CCUS. The most important first step in this sense is to not withdraw from the debate before it has even started. In countries where CCUS is planned and/or needs to happen, institutional actors must adopt firm and transparent positions based on evidence and acknowledge the magnitude of challenge of keeping industry competitive. The EU can help by communicating expectations on government and project developers for transparency on their policies and plans for CCUS. Otherwise, keeping them secretive to avoid public pushback is likely to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
There will always be narratives around CCUS. Politicisation will most likely continue as the project pipeline accelerates. However, understanding the current narratives and how they evolve gives a better chance of grounding story telling in facts, and engaging in a comprehensive public debate. This starts with getting the story straight: that CCUS is complex, it takes time and investment and, if properly managed, its benefits can be major. As a technology still seen by some media as alien and useless, CCUS will continue to capture attention. It is though up to those involved in its deployment to ensure that they end up enhancing industrial competitiveness while actually capturing carbon.
This op-ed is partly based on the findings of the article “Capturing attention: media and institutional narratives on carbon capture, utilisation, and storage in three EU countries”, available on Open Research Europe. This article has been written as part of the ConsenCUS project, which received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101022484 (CarbOn Neutral cluSters through Electricity-based iNnovations in Capture, Utilisation and Storage [101022484]).
The sole responsibility for the content of this publication lies with the authors. It does not necessarily represent the opinion of the European Union.
Luciana Miu, EPG Head of Clean Economy
Luciana Miu is Head of Clean Economy at Energy Policy Group. She oversees the work of the Clean Economy division, including industrial decarbonisation, building energy efficiency, and climate governance and policy. Luciana also conducts in-depth research and stakeholder engagement primarily in the field of industrial decarbonisation and carbon capture and storage.
Luciana is an expert in industrial decarbonisation and building energy efficiency, with a focus on consumer behavior, systems thinking and policy. She is also trained in renewable energy engineering and a highly skilled communicator with significant experience in stakeholder engagement on sustainability projects. Luciana has extensive experience in data collection and analysis, including conducting nationally representative surveys and statistical analysis and modelling in STATA. She is also well-versed in behavioral frameworks and socio-technical systems approaches to sustainability.
She holds a PhD in energy efficiency from Imperial College London, and an MSc in Sustainable Energy Systems and BSc in Environmental Science from the University of Edinburgh. Her PhD thesis has resulted in 3 publications in peer-reviewed journals, including Energy Policy and Energy Research and Social Science.
Luciana is passionate about youth engagement in the energy transition, and is one of the founders of the European Youth Energy Network, the first network of youth-led, energy-focused organisations in the EU. She is a native speaker of Romanian and English, is fluent in French and has basic knowledge of German and Danish.
Contact: luciana.miu@epg-thinktank.org