Programme

Good resource management has been and remains a central tenet of Norwegian petroleum policy, reflected in numerous provisions of the 1996 Petroleum Activities Act. The concept is increasingly invoked in relation to CCS, as the value chains of petroleum extraction and CO₂ transportation and storage share significant operational and regulatory similarities that could facilitate greater interaction between the two sectors. This presentation examines which regulatory instruments can contribute to good resource management of CO₂ storage capacity, reviewing both the EU Net Zero Industry Act and national legislation in Norway. The principal research questions are whether the existing legal and regulatory framework is sufficient to appraise CO₂ storage as a resource and ensure sound management, and whether adequate coordination tools exist at the national, regional, and EU/EEA levels.

This paper examines the legal status of captured carbon dioxide (CO₂) transported by sea for offshore sub-seabed storage. As the EU seeks to scale up carbon capture and storage (CCS), particularly in the Nordic and North Sea regions, legal uncertainty remains over whether captured CO₂ should be classified as waste, pollutant, cargo, commodity, property, or a regulated storage stream. The paper argues that captured CO₂ has a hybrid and lifecycle-dependent legal nature. From a public law perspective, CO₂ is primarily framed as an environmental risk subject to state regulation under UNCLOS, the London Protocol, OSPAR, and EU law. From a private law perspective, however, liquefied CO₂ may function as maritime cargo, a contractual object, or a tradable asset within CCS transport and storage chains.

Using doctrinal legal analysis, the paper traces CO₂ from capture, maritime transport, and injection to post-closure responsibility. It highlights tensions between environmental protection, commercial certainty, liability allocation, and cross-border infrastructure development. The paper concludes that rigid legal categorization is inadequate. Instead, a lifecycle-based classification better reflects the evolving legal functions of captured CO₂ and supports both environmental integrity and commercially viable offshore CCS deployment.

Drawing on anthropological fieldwork conducted in Iceland and abroad, this paper examines how the Carbfix Coda Terminal and the defunct Running Tide project have shaped perceptions of environmental governance in emerging CCS regimes, arguing that positive public attitude is critical for securing social licence and policy continuity.

This paper explores the legal governance challenges that would arise if States pursue CO₂ mineralisation at oceanic ridges in areas beyond national jurisdiction, with particular attention to the Common Heritage of Mankind principle and the implications of the BBNJ Agreement for this emerging technique.

This paper examines the temporal dimensions of due diligence, the precautionary approach, and environmental impact assessment in the law of the sea, questioning the temporal scale within which these legal tools can operate in relation to carbon storage activities. It addresses how liability and risk management frameworks apply to century-scale risks, particularly if storage were to proceed in areas beyond national jurisdiction.

This presentation focuses on transboundary storage, its legal definition in different scenarios, applicable instruments, and regulatory pathways for management in the North Sea. Two principal questions are addressed: first, how to define transboundary storage and the legal considerations, exploring the extent to which the law should encapsulate different CCS operations under the concept; and second, how cross-border governing agreements for storage can be formulated, drawing comparisons with existing unitisation agreements for straddling oil and gas fields in the North Sea.

Governance of carbon sequestration at sea remains deficient and fragmented despite its increasing potential as a tool to mitigate climate change by permanently sequestering large amounts of CO₂ at sea. This paper argues that the existing problems with the law emanate from the lack of firm undergirding principles, and that principles of justice should be incorporated into the legal framework. Such principles—including fairness, intergenerational equity, ecological responsibility, and distributive justice—will illuminate the gaps in existing law and guide its evolution.

Drawing on the recent ITLOS Advisory Opinion on Climate Change, this presentation argues that economic instruments within the IMO GHG Strategy alone cannot support the CCS sector, and that a unified legal framework integrating ITLOS-informed obligations into the IMO regulatory process is the most credible pathway for governing CO₂ shipping and maritime decarbonisation.

This paper examines how the adoption of the BBNJ Agreement introduces a significant new layer of governance for offshore CCS, which currently operates within the fragmented framework of the London Convention and its 1996 Protocol. It evaluates how the Agreement’s Area-Based Management Tools and Environmental Impact Assessment requirements may impose supplementary obligations on transboundary CO₂ transport and sub-seabed storage activities.

▸ Luciana Fernandes Coelho presents in person for both authors

This study develops a logistics optimisation framework to evaluate how national-scale CCS systems in Norway can be configured to balance economic efficiency with environmental integrity, analysing varying national avoidance targets and offering insights applicable to ongoing regulatory debates on cross-border transport, infrastructure planning, and long-term liability.

Drawing upon Rudolf von Jhering's purposive jurisprudence, this paper argues that the regulation of CCS at sea has been hampered by an inherited tendency to reason from category rather than from purpose. Through analysis of the London Protocol, the BBNJ Agreement, and the ITLOS Advisory Opinion of May 2024, it considers how the legal architecture might better serve its proper end — climate mitigation — by treating captured CO₂ as a function-defined activity rather than as a substance to be forced into pre-existing categories of waste, cargo, or pollutant.

This presentation highlights how technical standards developed by ISO under TC 265 and the new European CEN/TC 474 are increasingly referenced in CCS legal frameworks and permitting procedures. It illustrates the growing influence of international subject matter experts in shaping CCS regulation through standardisation, building on the oil and gas industry’s tradition of embedding best practices in regulatory frameworks.

CCS is a key enabler for reaching climate goals. Today, industry awaits clearer regulatory guidance, while regulators depend on industry input and project development to inform the framework, creating a circular dependency that risks slowing progress. This presentation explores how industry and regulators work together to develop effective frameworks, emphasising the importance of a learning-by-doing approach. It examines three offshore Norwegian examples—Sleipner, Snøhvit, and Northern Lights—which have played a crucial role in helping regulators and industry identify gaps and barriers across the CCS value chain.

This presentation reports on Sweden’s governmental assignment to the Geological Survey (SGU) to identify barriers to carbon storage permitting and propose simplifications. The principal conclusion of the first interim report is that no single regulation constitutes the greatest barrier; rather, the main challenge is a combination of unclear rules, knowledge gaps, and the absence of an overarching national CCS strategy with a clearly designated responsible authority.

This presentation outlines why CCS is essential for meeting Sweden’s 2045 climate target and how national and EU legal frameworks shape the emerging CCS value chain, highlighting the Swedish Energy Agency’s work to design policy instruments, address regulatory challenges, and support cross-border cooperation.

The current international legal framework for the seaborne transboundary transportation of CO₂ fails to guarantee the protection of the marine environment. If a maritime casualty occurs, no international regulation currently provides a mechanism to establish liability, guarantee clean-up operations, environmental reinstatement, and victims’ compensation. This role is fulfilled de facto by the 1976 Convention on Limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims (LLMC), which is not tailored for the transportation of CO₂.

While ship-based CO₂ transport offers operational flexibility as an alternative to pipeline infrastructure, it exposes profound legal, environmental, and governance challenges insufficiently resolved within existing international frameworks. This paper critically examines how fragmented ratification, uneven domestic implementation, and divergent interpretive practices under the London Protocol generate significant legal uncertainty for cross-border CO₂ shipping.

This paper argues that current maritime liability frameworks disproportionately burden ship owners and fail to recognise CO₂ as a climate mitigation substance, advocating for a fundamental shift toward treating ship-borne CO₂ transport as climate infrastructure rather than a residual variant of hazardous cargo carriage.

The urgency of mitigating climate change has intensified the need for rapid decarbonisation strategies across Europe. CCS has emerged as a potential technology to achieve EU, Swedish, and Nordic climate targets, yet its socio-ecological and environmental justice implications remain underexplored. This study investigates the role of CCS in meeting regional climate goals, addressing the central questions of how CCS can contribute to decarbonisation pathways in Sweden and the Nordic region and what the environmental justice and socio-ecological consequences of its deployment may be.

As climate mitigation efforts intensify, sub-seabed carbon storage in Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ) emerges as a potentially significant solution for large-scale CO₂ sequestration. However, the current international legal framework presents substantial regulatory gaps that threaten the viability and safety of such operations. The existing patchwork of instruments—including UNCLOS, the London Protocol, and the emerging BBNJ Agreement—creates jurisdictional ambiguities, enforcement challenges, and liability uncertainties.

The recent climate advisory opinions of ITLOS and the ICJ refine the content of States’ obligations under international law, with indirect implications for CCS. While neither opinion addresses CCS explicitly, both clarify due diligence duties under UNCLOS and the UNFCCC/Paris Agreement. They confirm that States must take all necessary measures, grounded in the best available science, to prevent, reduce, and control greenhouse gas emissions. For CCS, this supports its characterisation as a potentially necessary mitigation measure where it reflects best available technology, while imposing more stringent procedural and substantive constraints on deployment, particularly in transboundary and marine contexts governed by UNCLOS.

This paper critically appraises offshore CCS through an environmental and social justice lens, situating it within the evolving international legal architecture governing the marine environment. It interrogates whether existing regulatory frameworks adequately address long-term socio-ecological risks, transboundary harm, liability gaps, and cumulative impacts of sub-seabed carbon storage. The paper examines how offshore CCS projects may perpetuate structural inequalities by externalising environmental risks to coastal communities and future generations, while delivering disproportionate benefits to major emitters in the Global North, and proposes normative principles and governance reforms to align deployment with environmental integrity and the precautionary principle.

The oceans cover over 70 per cent of the planet’s surface and play a crucial role in the global carbon cycle. As the largest carbon sink in the world, they are estimated to have absorbed roughly 40 per cent of anthropogenic CO₂ emissions since the beginning of the industrial era. Yet contemporary climate strategies have largely focused on engineered solutions such as CCS, while the oceans’ existing capacity to sequester carbon through biological processes has received comparatively limited legal attention. Recent scientific evidence demonstrates that the biological carbon pump, operated by marine organisms ranging from microbes to large vertebrates, binds and sequesters vast amounts of carbon at scales comparable to, and in some respects exceeding, those targeted by CCS. This paper argues that promoting biological carbon sequestration represents a more effective and potentially more cost-efficient climate mitigation pathway than expanding offshore CCS infrastructure, and develops the case for complementing Maximum Sustainable Yield with Maximum Climate Mitigation as a guiding objective for marine governance.

This paper examines how recent international and regional court decisions are reshaping legal standards applicable to CCS by embedding public interest considerations, human rights protection, and precautionary reasoning into the assessment of State responsibility, reflecting a shift toward a more substantive conception of climate-related due diligence.

This paper proposes a dual-track liability system: strict operator liability during site selection, injection, and closure phases, followed by a transfer of responsibility to the State as custodian in the post-closure phase, coupled with mandatory insurance coverage to address the potentially severe consequences of CO₂ leakage.

The development of offshore CCS projects—from the beginning of the logistics chain in the port through to maritime transport—poses significant legal and regulatory complexities, particularly with regard to the allocation and insurability of environmental and operational risks among all operators involved. Traditional marine and energy insurance regimes may not fully accommodate the specific characteristics of long-term CO₂ storage, its temporary storage in ports, and its maritime transport between facilities. This presentation examines the challenges that the insurance market faces in addressing these emerging needs.

The rapid operationalisation of CCS at sea has outpaced the development of a coherent international liability framework governing the maritime transport and sub-seabed sequestration of captured CO₂. While existing international maritime liability conventions have evolved to address accidental pollution from oil and hazardous substances, their applicability to CCS remains uncertain. This paper argues that this uncertainty reflects a deeper structural misfit rooted in the ambiguous legal characterisation of liquefied CO₂ within international maritime law.

▸ Akrita Kaur presents in person for both authors

This paper examines CCS regulatory strategies adopted in advanced economies—including value chain regulation, whole-of-government approaches, and multi-tier governance in Norway, Canada, Australia, the UK, and the US—alongside emerging efforts in South Africa and Nigeria. It draws critical lessons from these diverse approaches for sustainable CCS deployment in emerging economies.

This paper argues that any Baltic Sea CCS project should require strict application of the precautionary principle as codified in the Helsinki Convention, with the Helsinki Commission overseeing a process of cross-boundary scientific consensus that a given operation does not present serious risk of environmental harm before it may proceed.

An expanding body of research has emphasised the feasibility of carbon storage in basaltic lithologies beneath the sea, which can produce stable carbonate minerals and imply potentially permanent storage. Through cases of research and industrial projects, this paper explores how the epistemic challenges of accessing subsurface geological formations shape the promises surrounding marine basaltic storage and call for specific modalities of public regulation and informed public communication.

This paper examines how Iceland’s domestic legal and administrative framework addresses the permitting of ship-transported CO₂ for permanent storage, focusing on legal uncertainty surrounding cross-border transport. Using the Carbfix Coda Terminal project as a case study, it explores how intersecting obligations under the London Protocol, OSPAR, and the Aarhus Convention, alongside public concerns about Iceland becoming a repository for foreign CO₂, contributed to administrative uncertainty. In combination with political and public opposition, this ultimately led to the project being placed on hold.

This paper analyses the role of port adaptability in enabling offshore CCS deployment, with a focus on operational changes and concession regime implications. It argues that current port concession models, typically structured around established cargo flows and short investment cycles, are ill-suited for CCS projects characterised by long development timelines, high capital intensity, and substantial regulatory uncertainty.

Despite possessing one of Europe’s largest CO₂ storage capacities (12 to 15 gigatonnes), Poland for over a decade strictly limited CCS to demonstration projects, with not a single entity applying for a licence by 2024. This paper examines whether recent shifts in European energy policy and Poland’s legislative reforms abolishing this restriction are sufficient to stimulate deployment, given persistent regulatory fragmentation and institutional challenges.

Moderator: Anıl Öztürk, Lund University

Panellists: Gabriela Argüello, Olena Bokareva, Thomas Muinzer, Patrick Seroogy, Viktor Weber