International Body Focuses on Technological Solutions

From March 26-28, 2007, Paris, France will host a meeting of the Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum (CSLF), an international climate change body that focuses on the development of improved cost-effective technologies for the separation and capture of carbon dioxide for its transport and long-term safe storage.

In connection with the Paris meetings, there will be a press briefing for interested media:

What: Briefing on the 22 member Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum

When: 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Where: Salons du Press Club, 8 rue Jean Goujon - 75008 Paris (metro station: Champs Elysees-Clemenceau or Franklin Roosevelt; car park: run Francois 1er)

Who: Olivier Appert, Institut Francais du Petrole, chairman and chief executive officer; Jeffrey Jarrett, Chairman, CSLF Policy Committee, and Assistant Secretary, United States Department of Energy; John Hartwell, CSLF Policy Committee Vice-Chairman, and Head of Division, Department of Industry, Tourism and Resources of Australia; Trude Sundset, Chairman, CSLF Technical Committee, and Chief Researcher Statoil ASA, Norway;

BACKGROUND

The CSLF is a voluntary climate initiative of developed and developing nations that account for about 75% of all manmade carbon dioxide emissions. The CSLF was established in 2003 and focuses on development of carbon capture and storage technologies as a means to accomplishing long-term stabilization of greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere. The goal is to improve carbon capture and storage technologies through coordinated research and development with international partners and private industry. This could include promoting the appropriate technical, political, and regulatory environments for the development of such technology.

Members engage in cooperative technology development aimed at enabling the early reduction and steady elimination of the carbon dioxide which constitutes more than 60 percent of such emissions - the product of electric generation and other heavy industrial activity. In 2005, the Forum and the technologies it seeks to develop were identified by international bodies as pivotal in dealing with greenhouse gases and their ultimate stabilization.

In July 2005, the G-8 Summit endorsed CSLF in its Gleneagles Plan of Action on Climate Change, Clean Energy and Sustainable Development, and identified it as a medium of cooperation and collaboration with key developing countries in dealing with greenhouse gases.

Current members are: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Denmark, European Commission, France, Germany, Greece, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, United Kingdom, United States.