A seaborne CO₂ market will evolve
Letter on carbon: Free movement
Europe must unlock cross-border CO₂ trade if it wants to build a viable CCS sector for the long term
Europe has operated a financial market for CO₂ for nearly 20 years in the form of the EU ETS. If it is serious about deployment of CCS at scale across the continent, it also needs to create a borderless physical CO₂ market: shipment of the greenhouse gas across borders for injection into open-access storage is essential for de-risking the massively expensive projects taking shape in the North Sea. Only with the ability to ship or pipe in CO₂ from other regions will large-scale storage facilities start to become viable businesses that can be weaned off state subsidies in the long term. On the other side of the CCS trade, industrial emitters will engage in some offsetting or locational swaps t
Also in this section
12 March 2026
Role of world’s largest carbon cap-and-trade market under scrutiny as war in Iran threatens to drive EU energy costs to unsustainable levels
10 March 2026
Europe urgently needs to bring more projects to FID, as CCS investors warn they might divert capital to faster-growing regions
9 January 2026
A shift in perspective is needed on the carbon challenge, the success of which will determine the speed and extent of emissions cuts and how industries adapt to the new environment
2 January 2026
This year may be a defining one for carbon capture, utilisation and storage in the US, despite the institutional uncertainty
