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CCS and the Sustainable Development Goals

Technical Report

15 December 2020

Policy & Regulation

Tom Mikunda, James Rawlins, Logan Brunner, Eirini Skylogianni, Juliana Monteiro

Citation: IEAGHG, "CCS and the Sustainable Development Goals", 2020-14, December 2020.

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Publication Overview

The overall objective of this assessment was to improve the availability and accessibility of information regarding the relevance of CCS in contributing to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. The primary objective was achieved through the completion of three key goals:

  1. Collation of existing information on impacts of CCS on specific targets of the 17 SDGs, using the rating, scoring and information assessment as per IPCC’s SR1.5,
  2. Articulation of specific gaps in information, and
Proposal of a path forward by providing a prioritised lists of gap closures.There is a growing body of literature orientated towards converting climate action into policies directed towards implementation of SDGs. There is also a trend of material becoming available examining the interaction of technologies and sectors against SDGs. CCS remains a complex technological solution to climate change, and public understanding of the technology remains low. This study can help to substantiate the wider value of CCS, but it can also highlight points of attention/action on potentially negative interactions with specific SDGs.

Publication Summary

  • This study has mapped carbon capture and storage (CCS) against a select number of the 17 sustainable development goals that have a direct interaction for both the power and industrial sectors.
  • CCS has a number of positive interactions with the SDGs:
         o The considerable potential for CCS to immediately decarbonize both the power and industrial sector means that the deployment of CCS is considered indivisible with actions needed to combat climate change and its impacts (SDG13).
         o CCS plays an enabling role in the provision of reliable, sustainable and modern energy and can support the decarbonisation of industry both through direct emissions reductions but also indirectly through the supply of low carbon power (SDG7).
         o CCS can promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all and contribute to a decoupling of economic growth from environmental degradation, through the reduction of CO₂ emissions (SDG8).
         o CCS can also enable sustainable infrastructure developments as well as inclusive and sustainable industrialization, provide a boost to innovation systems, (SDG9), and reduce the carbon footprint of cities to make them more sustainable (SDG11).
         o Through the reduction of CO₂ in the atmosphere, CCS can enable the stabilisation of ocean acidification (a key target of SDG14, i.e. SDG14.3).
  • CCS can also have a number of negative interactions with the SDGs:
  • Lifecycle emissions may result in counteracting or constraining interactions with a number of SDGs (3, 6 and 15).
  • In a demand-driven scenario, the energy penalty of CCS means that it can be seen as a constraint on meeting energy efficiency targets (SDG7) but this is only if the assumption that the additional electricity production due to the energy penalty will be supplied by fossil fuels with CCS. In a modern electricity system based on economic generation dispatch (merit order) this may not be the case (see sections on Approach and Limitations for more context).
  • Although CCS obtained a variety of scores across the SDG targets in the assessment, for none of the mapped SGDs CCS was seen as ‘cancelling’, i.e. making it impossible to reach the related SDG and/or sub target.
  • A number of limitations apply when using the results of this study for policy development:
         o Availability and comparability of data.
         o Definition of the counterfactual will impact on the results (e.g. demand-driven vs capacity-driven scenario, in the latter most negative impacts of CCS, i.e. the ones related to the energy penalty and the related fuel consumption, will not materialise).
         o Construction and use of all low-emission technologies will have various environmental, economic and social impacts, i.e. evaluation of trade-offs in isolation will likely have limited value for policy development and selection of pathways.
  • Several knowledge gaps were identified and recommendations for further work include:
         o Additional lifecycle assessments (LCAs) of 2nd generation CCS technologies and CCS in industry (especially in terms of water and energy efficiency gains).
         o More studies on the macroeconomic impact of CCS in different regions.
         o Research on the employment aspects of CCS compared to other low-emission technologies.
         o Investigation of the role of certain CCS technologies for carbon dioxide removal (CDR), i.e. bioenergy with CCS (BECCS) and direct air capture with CCS (DACS)

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