Funder: QUADRAT
Status: October 2022-Current
Lead researcher: Aya El Samad
Lead supervisor: Tavis Potts
Supervisory team: Clare Bond, Wes Flannery (Queens University Belfast)
Project summary: Achieving net zero requires safe, efficient, and cost-effective carbon capture, utilisation, and storage (CCUS). While CCUS features prominently in global emissions-reduction pathways, including the IPCC 2018 Special Report, its successful deployment depends not only on technological feasibility but equally on social and political acceptance. Non-technical factors, including public trust, stakeholder engagement, and the acquisition of a social licence to operate (SLO), are critical determinants of whether CCUS projects succeed or fail. Despite growing recognition of this, a significant evidence gap remains around how social perceptions of CCUS vary at regional scales and across different governance and cultural contexts.
This research addresses that gap by mapping, for the first time, stakeholder understanding and social acceptance of CCUS across two strategically significant regions: the North East of Scotland (UK) and Western Australia. Using Q methodology, the study captures the diversity of stakeholder viewpoints and examines the local factors that shape perceptions of CCUS and inform the conditions under which an SLO can be achieved.
Outputs:
- forthcoming