The Czech Republic has storage capacities, it needs and wants to cut its CO2 emissions and co-owns an energy company willing to invest into new technologies. So why isn’t CO2 Capture and Storage (CCS) happening?

As the saying goes, the sacred city is falling because everyone is just doing their duty. Without making a parallel between a sacred city and CCS technology, if all the relevant actors and decision-makers did just a little bit more a lot could be done to cut CO2 emissions from the Czech coal power plants which are the major CO2 polluters.

The reasons behind this reluctance to invest into CCS are multiple. Firstly, since the transformation of Czech economy from centrally-planned to free market, there has been lack of coordination of research and development. The Ministry of Industry and Trade (MIT) wants to invest into new technologies – other than CCS – without specifying on what basis and for what reason. Secondly, a significant number of decision-makers, including the Czech president Václav Klaus and many officials of the Ministry of Industry and Trade do not believe that climate change is man-made and, therefore, do not see a reason to fight it. Thirdly, the MIT’s main rival in the government, the Ministry of the Environment, a rather modest ministry on the Czech scale, has grown into supporting CCS but has neither the mandate nor the means to fund CCS on its own, let alone persuade the MIT, the government and ČEZ. In the end, it is nobody’s “fault”.

It appears that “ČEZ is playing chess”. Its delaying tactics may no longer be needed if a big coalition of Civic Democrats (ODS, formerly lead by Václav Klaus) and the Czech Social Democrats (ČSSD) sees light this October. While holding the ministries in check, the moment smaller coalition partners disappear from the government, it maybe a matter of months before ČEZ plays its checkmate on its already modest, short-term and one-step-behind environmental goals. Simply put, going green may become just a closed chapter in the history books under “turn of the Millenium policy shifts”.

This article was contributed by Jan Havlik (Bellona CCS Advisor in the Czech Republic)