Professor John Paterson of the Law Schooland AUCEL has recently contributed to several international and policy-focused initiatives addressing key legal and regulatory issues in the energy transition, including international discussions on decommissioning, carbon storage regulation and geothermal policy.
In November 2025, Professor Paterson was a speaker at the event “Comparative Decommissioning Issues: Focus on Far East and Africa”, organised by the Association of International Energy Negotiators (AIEN) and hosted at Robert Gordon University. His presentation examined the UK’s approach to decommissioning and highlighted emerging issues that may serve as early warnings for jurisdictions at earlier stages of the process.
At the end of January, Professor Paterson also participated in the Copenhagen module of the Joint Advanced Master’s in Energy Law, delivered by the North Sea Energy Law Partnership. The programme is jointly offered by the University of Aberdeen, University of Copenhagen, University of Groningen and University of Oslo.
During the module, Professor Paterson delivered a lecture on recent developments in the economic regulation of CO₂ storage in the UK as part of a comparative session held on 29 January. He also joined the academic panel assessing student presentations on 30 January. Students from the programme will next attend the Aberdeen module, Energy Security, Safety, and Investment Protection, which will take place from 14–26 June 2026.
Professor Paterson is also contributing to national policy discussions through his involvement in the Government–Industry Roundtable on geothermal energy led by Geothermal UK. The initiative is exploring how to enable the large-scale development of deep geothermal projects in support of the UK’s energy security and climate objectives. As part of this work, Professor Paterson leads a sub-working group focused on the legal and regulatory framework needed to support the sector’s development.