1st Meeting of the Network of National CCUS Centres of Excellence in the Global South

This initiative, co-led by IEAGHG and the Gulf Coast Carbon Center (GCCC) at the University of Texas at Austin’s Bureau of Economic Geology, is designed to foster innovation, collaboration, and capacity-building for CCUS across key development sectors in the Global South. Through an invitation-only network, it brings together leading institutions committed to driving excellence in CCUS research, policy, and implementation in the Global South. The goal is to facilitate South-South cooperation by sharing experiences, lessons learnt and best practices.

This first formal meeting (virtual) on the 30^th July built upon the in-person meeting on 15 October in Regina, Canada which was hosted by the International CCS Knowledge Centre in conjunction with a tour to SaskPower’s Boundary Dam CCS project.

During the virtual meeting, national organisations presented a summary of their current activities, their key challenges and whether and how they were overcome. While not all organisations have formally established centres, all are engaged in activities that are the functions of a national centre of excellence, and have experiences and expertise to share.

After a welcome and background from IEAGHG and GCCC, we had presentations from University of Trinidad and Tobago (UTT) and University of the West Indies (UWI), Trinidad and Tobago; Institut Teknologi Bandung and the Indonesia CCS Centre, Indonesia; Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITB), India;  South Africa Council for Geosciences, Northwest University, China; Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P), Morocco; Ecopetrol, Colombia; and also from the International Finance Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank Group. These were followed by questions, discussions, and a description of needs from this network.

In terms of key challenges, while many organisations stated that funding was a key challenge, as might be expected, some faced other key challenges, such as access to data, access to land, and coordination with other stakeholder organisations and ministries in their country.

The meeting concluded with agreement to name the initiative “Network of National CCUS Centres of Excellence in the Global South” (NNCCE) and that the next meeting will focus on identifying key topics of need and relevant resources to address these.