Interviewee: Sandrine Dixson-Decleve, International Sustainable Energy Exchange

Chris Slatter: You've said some fairly forthright things out there; you talked about energy security and climate change; you're in favour of further debate etc. Do you think we've got anywhere today?

Sandrine Dixson-Decleve: I think it's a good question. I think we have gotten anywhere today. I think that there are a variety of different issues that we're confronted with at the European level. If you look at energy security, right now at least in terms of the package of legislation that we have, we're looking at renewables, we're looking at trying to reduce our climate impact actually from energy and then within that package, we also have the CCS option. Now the CCS is in terms of new technology development, whereas the renewables we're looking more already now at trying to set targets so that we actually use more renewable energy. On the CCS side, I think we're still looking for pilot projects. But the fact of the matter is that we have to have discussion and debate in terms of those different instruments, whether it be renewables, whether it be new technology developments, and whether it be CCS. And there are a variety of confrontational issues. There still is some development that has to be undertaken in the area of CCS. We've heard about that, whether it be in terms of storage, in terms of leakage, but still that shouldn't stop us from moving forward and trying to set some level of playing field for CCS users and CCS technology developers.

Chris Slatter: Do you think the initiative's going to come from Governments or is it going to come from industry?

Sandrine Dixson-Decleve: Well, as we heard from Government, no one thinks that they're going to be able to really open up the research budget in order to incorporate something on CCS. I think it will have to be both however. And if it's not necessarily the research budget, maybe it will be through tax incentives or other fiscal mechanisms that will enable actually CCS to come to the forefront. But definitely industry has to come forward too. We need to have joint ventures. We need to have more investment from industry. I think we've heard from Shell that they're looking at that possibility, that they're have been already some positive signals to Piebalgs, our Energy Commissioner, on this subject from industry. So with both working together, I think we will find some solutions.

Chris Slatter: What's the urgency with moving this initiative forward?

Sandrine Dixson-Decleve: Well, within the context of new energy development, I don't think the urgency is as great as some of our other issues. For example, what do we do in terms of renewables? What do we do in terms of biofuels? There, there really is some key issues that we need to address such as food versus fuel, yet CCS is there just around the corner. And, in particular, when we're looking again at energy security, unconventional gas, tar sands, coal � if we really want to move down a route of accepting that peak oil is here and that we need to look at other alternatives, then CCS is one of those possibilities to try to compensate for C02 impact coming from those alternatives.