Faculty Research Seminar – “Developing Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage in Europe and China: A Legal Perspective” by Prof. Hao Zhang

Faculty Research Seminar – “Developing Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage in Europe and China: A Legal Perspective” by Prof. Hao Zhang

The Paris Agreement and the carbon neutrality targets adopted by an increasing number of countries and jurisdictions, including the European Union (EU) and China, have called for carbon mitigation technologies to play important roles. With the expectation that fossil fuel will remain the primary source of energy world-wide for the coming decades, many scholars advocate the use of carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) as a viable solution to capture and isolate CO2 from fossil fuel combustion processes. To date, experimentations of CCUS have been carried out in North America, Europe, Middle East and Asia. However, commercialisation of CCUS has had a slow progress, mainly due to the high capital costs required and the lack of a regulatory framework that encourages investment and responsible operation. Promoting CCUS projects will require the establishment of a regulatory regime, both at the international and domestic level, to manage risks at various parts of the supply chain and to support technology investment. Within this framework, the domestic regulatory regime has been identified as a crucial factor that could facilitate or inhibit expansion of CCUS at a larger scale. This seminar will review and critically examine the existing regulatory systems governing CCUS development in the EU and China. The two jurisdictions are selected because they have good representations, as sinks and sources of CO2, in developing the CCUS supply chain. Based on some preliminary analyses, this seminar will shed some light on the legal challenges faced by CCUS development in the EU and China, and propose some regulatory changes that are necessary for facilitating CCUS supply chain at the domestic and regional level.

About the speaker:
Hao Zhang is Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Law, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Prof. Zhang obtained his PhD from Melbourne Law School, the University of Melbourne in Australia and he specialises in energy and environmental law, with a strong focus on China. He is the co-editor of the book Climate Change Law in China in Global Context (Routledge, 2020) and has published journal articles on legal issues in relation to China’s green economic transition, including, for example, integration of renewable energy to the grid network and regulatory tools on decarbonisation in the energy sector. Prof. Zhang is the Deputy LLM Programme Director (Energy and Environmental Law) and he serves as an associate editor for the journal, Climate Law.

Register here by 12noon, 1 March 2021 to attend the seminar.

Date

03 Mar 2021
Expired!

Time

1:00 pm - 2:00 pm

Location

Online
Online

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