Publication Overview
To undertake this review of media impact IEA GHG agreed contracts with two specialist organisations. The first of these studies was agreed with the Copernicus Institute, University of Utrecht, the Netherlands and the second with Tyndall Centre, University of Manchester, UK. Two contracts were agreed because of the different approaches used and the different geographical distribution of the media searches proposed. The Copernicus Institute proposed to use a web based search tool to review media articles in the European press, the countries covered included; UK , Netherlands, France, Spain , Italy and Germany. In contrast, the Tyndall Centre study involved a dedicated exercise where an individual would review news articles in the English speaking press alone. This review covered newspaper articles in: UK, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. In each case, articles were scanned for three months before the release of the IPCC SRCCS (released week 39, 26th -30th September 2005) and for three months after. Overall, it was considered that the two studies gave a good global coverage of media response covering most regions of the world that were actively developing CCS projects with the noted exception of Japan.
Publication Summary
The studies when taken together indicate that there is a still someway to go in convincing people that the technology is both technically and economically viable and safe. The release of IPCC SRCCS appears to have not been totally successful in helping to allay peoples concerns over the technology. Public concerns are likely to become heightened as the technology moves nearer to widespread implementation. Unless these issues are addressed early then the publics concerns could prove to be a major barrier to CCS implementation. The study has also shown that public awareness is still limited in a number of countries and regions of the world. The other key barriers that the study has highlighted are the need for the development of appropriate regulatory frameworks and the need for financial incentives for CCS to be taken up by commercial developers in sectors like the power industry and major manufacturing industries.
