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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Mar. Sci.
Sec. Global Change and the Future Ocean
Volume 11 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fmars.2024.1423962
This article is part of the Research Topic Shipping Pressures and Impacts on the Marine Environment View all 7 articles

Transboundary transportation of CO2 streams by ships: Regulatory barriers for scaling up carbon capture and sub-seabed storage

Provisionally accepted
Gabriela Argüello Gabriela Argüello 1*Olena Bokareva Olena Bokareva 2
  • 1 University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden
  • 2 Lund University, Lund, Skane County, Sweden

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Over the years, Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) has been recognized as a crucial element in the toolkit of measures to combat climate change. At the European Union (EU) level, CCS plays a vital role in climate policy, particularly in reducing CO2 emissions from hard-to-abate industries. However, no comprehensive legal framework covers all aspects of CCS. These stages include carbon capture techniques, transportation by ships or pipelines, injection, site closure, and post-closure management. Each of these stages is regulated by different legal frameworks that address various topics such as geoengineering, climate change, industrial activities, property, transportation, port operations, waste management, dumping, health, and the environment. Critical legal questions remain unanswered, such as who is liable for discharges in the marine environment during the transportation of CO2 by ships and for the long-term management of sub-seabed storage sites. As the transportation of CO2 by ships will likely have transboundary implications, we explore the legal possibilities, limitations and risks associated with exporting CO2 streams for sequestration under the sub-seabed.

    Keywords: CO2 sequestration, sub-seabed storage and transportation, Long-term liability, International Law, EU law

    Received: 26 Apr 2024; Accepted: 04 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Argüello and Bokareva. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Gabriela Argüello, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden

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