WCI Chief Executive at CCS Debate

World Coal Institute Chief Executive takes part in CCS Debate

30 June 2009

On 30 June, Milton Catelin, WCI CEO, took part in an Economist Conference's debate "Carbon capture and storage: A pipe dream or critical to the world's plans to reduce emissions".

The debate, held at London's Royal College of Physicians, included a panel of six speakers, representing a cross section of opinion, moderated by the debate chairman, Roger Harrabin, Environment Analyst at the BBC.

The six panellists were:

• Milton Catelin, CEO, World Coal Institute
• Keith Alliot, Head of Climate Change, WWF
• Malcolm Brinded, Executive Director, Exploration & Production, Royal Dutch Shell
• Martin Deutz, Director, Cleaner Fossil Fuels, Department of Energy & Climate Change
• Edward McBride, Business Editor, The Economist
• Chris Train, Director, Network Operations, National Grid

Mr Catelin, echoing a point made by Martin Deutz, highlighted that without CCS, the cost of carbon mitigation would be 70% higher, or US$1.28 trillion a year more from 2050, according to estimates by the International Energy Agency. "Our view is clearly that CCS is very important to the coal industry but it is important to a number of other industries too; and most importantly it is essential to the climate effort," said Mr Catelin.

Mr Harrabin asked, can CCS be delivered at anything like a cost so that it pays for itself, and can it be delivered without starving other renewables of investment?

Mr Catelin said: "Yes. It would be pointless to fund CCS and not renewables, energy efficiency etc. But sometimes politicians mislead us that climate change can be solved cheaply. It simply cannot."

A summary of the debate can be downloaded below.