Industrial Carbon Management: cross-programme workshop highlights the added value of joint efforts throughout the entire CO2 sector

On 7 June, CINEA hosted a knowledge-sharing cross-programme workshop focusing on Industrial Carbon Management (ICM) in Europe. The event, organised in a hybrid format, gathered more than 80 participants, including representatives from the EU institutions and project developers.

Paloma Aba-Garrote, director of CINEA, opened the session highlighting the support that the three EU funding programmes managed by the Agency supporting CO₂ projects (CEF Energy, Innovation Fund and Horizon Europe) provide to research and deployment in the carbon sector, namely in the three main technological pathways (carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS)) as well as in CO₂ transport networks. CINEA has allocated a total of EUR 4.5 billion of EU funding to projects contributing to industrial carbon management. (See more in the ICM interactive tool).

Representatives from the European Commission (DG CLIMA and DG ENER) participated in the workshop by providing the policy framework and an outlook on actions for the EU and its Member States to implement. The Commission shed light over some new supporting initiatives to come, among which the CO₂ demand-supply aggregation platform, the CO₂ Storage Atlas, and the CO₂ regulatory transport package can be highlighted.

The workshop also featured presentations from five EU-funded flagship projects: 3D - DMX Demonstration in Dunkirk, Beccs Stockholm, Kairos@C, Antwerp@C and Northern Lights, which showed inspiring progress towards carbon management in Europe.

The goal of the workshop was to trigger a discussion over the challenges, needs and concerns of different stakeholders along the value chain, covering the CO₂ emitting industry, the transportation side, the storage as well as the impact and benefits for citizens. 

Public support, financing mechanisms and further Commission’s guidance to address issues like CO₂ quality (faced by front runners in CCS deployment), were underlined as key elements to keep strengthening EU’s capacity to build a well-functioning CCUS market that will pave the way, along with other initiatives, towards the decarbonisation of European economy.

In addition, the workshop was a great opportunity to share the knowledge that is gradually being built in industrial carbon management, including on further research priorities. 

Finally, the debate also highlighted the complementarities among the three EU programmes and the added value of joining efforts towards achieving the common goal of EU’s climate neutrality by 2050.

More information

To follow the development on deployment of CCUS technologies, see the webpage of the 2024 edition of the ICM Forum, to be co-hosted by the French Ministry for Energy Transition in October 2024.