31 May 2009: Organized by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in cooperation with the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum and the Ministry of the Environment, the High-Level Conference on Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) took place in Bergen, Norway, from 27-28 May 2009.

The conference aimed to promote climate technologies within the international climate change agenda by bringing together high-level policy makers to share their views and strategies and explore concrete experiences, priorities and initiatives towards a comprehensive global approach for delivering climate solutions.
The key outcome of the conference, a Chair’s summary, concluded that: a comprehensive approach to reduce carbon dioxide emissions must include CCS; CCS can play a key role in the transition to a low-emission society; more large-scale demonstration plants, more research and development and a major scaling-up of present CCS efforts are needed; stimulating framework conditions are necessary to encourage wide-scale capture and storage; transport and storage projects must minimize the risk of negative impacts to the environment, health and safety; private sector companies have a particular role to make CCS commercially viable; CCS must be made accessible to developing countries; and CCS should feature in discussions at the UN Copenhagen Climate Change Conference in December 2009 and in other relevant fora. [IISDRS Coverage] [Conference Website]