Suzanne Brunsting

Public Responses to Co2 Storage Sites: Lessons from Five European Cases

Studies of the factors involved in public perceptions of CO2 storage projects reveal a level of complexity and diversity that arguably confounds a comprehensive theoretical account. To some extent, a conceptual approach that simply organises the relevant social scientific knowledge thematically, rather than seeking an integrated explanation, is as useful as any single account that fails to do justice to the contingencies involved. This paper reviews and assembles such knowledge in terms of six themes and applies these themes to five European cases of carbon capture and storage (CCS) implementation. We identify the main factors involved in community responses to CCS as relating to: The characteristics of the project; the engagement process; risk perceptions; the actions of the stakeholders; the characteristics of the community, and the socio-political context.

How stakeholder interactions can reduce space for moral considerations in decision making: A contested CCS project in the Netherlands

We analyse the dynamics of a decision-making process on a contested carbon capture and storage project in The Netherlands by investigating the interactions between the involved stakeholders and how these reinforced, or were shaped by, a meta-frame. Our analysis suggests that from the start of the project, the interactions between stakeholders were shaped by, and reinforced, a goal-rational meta-frame. This frame, and the respective interactions, did not function well in aligning project proponents and the local community. For the latter group, issues were at stake that could not be addressed within the goalrational frame, such as moral considerations of procedural and distributive justice. Yet it was a very powerful frame that remained dominant and kept being reproduced throughout the process. Our analysis suggests that policy processes on projects like this should create interactions that leave open the opportunity for divergent, latent frames to become articulated. We identify three challenges for policy and planning of low-carbon technologies concerning the need for frame reflexivity in planning and decision making, the articulation of divergent stakeholder views and the design of stakeholder interactions.