Overcoming Impediments to Offshore CO2 Storage: Legal Issues in the United States and Canada

Date01 July 2019
Author
49 ELR 10634 ENVIRONMENTAL LAW REPORTER 7-2019
ARTICLES
Human activities resulting in the emission of car-
bon dioxide have contributed to a marked rise
in global temperature s. e Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that, due to
human activities, global avera ge temperatures have risen by
approximately 1 degree Celsius (°C) above pre-industrial
levels.1 According to the IPCC , increasing temperatures
have already had “[i]mpacts on many natural and human
systems,” which will come under even greater stress in
the future as warm ing continues.2 Recognizing t his and
seeking to avoid the worst impacts of global warming,
the international community set a goal in the 2015 Paris
Agreement of “[h]olding the increase in global average
temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial lev-
els,” and ideally “to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C
above pre-industrial levels.3 is will require a dramatic
reduction in carbon dioxide emissions, which must reach
“net zer o”4 between 2050 and 2075, and likely need to go
“net negative”5 short ly thereafter.6
Research shows that emissions reductions of this mag-
nitude are achievable but will likely require the use of
carbon management techniques, such as carbon capture,
utiliz ation, and storage (CCUS).7 In broad terms, CCUS
involves capturing carbon dioxide at its source, before it
is released into the atmosphere, and then either using it in
some way or injecting it into underground geologic for-
mations, where it will be permanently sequestered.8 is
process, particula rly where it involves sequestration, can
avoid furt her increa ses in t he atmospheric concentrat ion
of carbon dioxide. It can also be combined with so-called
1. Myles Allen et al., Summary for Policymakers, in G W  1.5oC
6 (Valérie Masson-Delmotte et al. eds., Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change 2018), available at https://perma.cc/8CTM-K66D.
2. Id. at 7.
3. United Nations Paris Agreement, Dec. 12, 2015, art. 2, §1(a), 55 I.L.M.
743 (2016).
4. To achieve “net-zero” emissions, any release of carbon dioxide must be
oset by the removal of an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide from
the atmosphere.
5. To achieve “net-negative” emissions, more carbon dioxide must be removed
from the atmosphere than is added to it.
6. Allen et al., supra note 1, at 14-15.
7. Id. at 19.
8. P F, C R S, R44902, C
C  S (CCS)   U S 1-2 (2018),
available at https://perma.cc/8SSN-5BCV.
Overcoming
Impediments to
Offshore CO2
Storage: Legal
Issues in the United
States and Canada
by Romany M. Webb and
Michael B. Gerrard
Romany M. Webb is an Associate Research Scholar at Columbia
Law School and Senior Fellow at the Sabin Center for Climate
Change Law. Michael B. Gerrard is the Andrew Sabin Professor
of Professional Practice at Columbia Law School and Faculty
Director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change law.
Summary
Limiting future temperature increa ses and associated cli-
mate change requires immediate action to prevent addi-
tional carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere
and to lower the existing atmospheric carbon dioxide load.
is could be advanced through carbon capture and stor-
age (CCS), which involves collecting carbon dioxide that
would otherwise be released by power plants or similar
facilities and injecting it into underground geologic forma-
tions, where it will remain permanently sequestered. e
techniques developed for CCS can al so be used to sequester
carbon dioxide that has been removed from the atmosphere
using direct air c apture or other negative emission technolo-
gies. Past CCS research ha s primarily focused on sequester-
ing carbon dioxide onshore, for example, in depleted oil and
gas reservoirs or deep saline aquifers. is Article explores
the legal framework governing sub-seabed carbon dioxide
injection (oshore CCS) in U.S. and Canadian waters, par-
ticularly the Cascadia Basin, where there is a large sub-sea-
bed basalt rock formation with signic ant storage potential.
Authors’ Note: e authors wish to acknowledge support for this
work under U.S. Department of Energy Award DE-FE0029219.
e authors thank Michael Burger, Executive Director of the Sabin
Center for Climate Change Law, for his advice on the drafting of
this Article. e authors are also grateful to Prof. David Goldberg
of Columbia University and Prof. Ted McDorman of the University
of Victoria for their insightful comments on an early draft of this
Article. Any errors are our own.
Copyright © 2019 Environmental Law Institute®, Washington, DC. Reprinted with permission from ELR®, http://www.eli.org, 1-800-433-5120.

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