CANBERRA, 10 September 2009 - The UK 's Special Representative for Climate Change, John Ashton, proposed a new political partnership to provide certainty around the global deployment of carbon capture and storage technology at a speech at the Australian National University (ANU) today.

"There is no credible climate strategy that does not address the need for carbon capture and storage (CCS) to become the universal standard for all new coal and gas-fired power generation by around 2020," Ashton told several hundred attendees. "It is imperative that we agree on a blueprint to deliver global CCS demonstration on an accelerated timetable by 2015."

In a speech entitled "Coal: The Elephant in the Room," he proposed a six point international action partnership to build momentum around the urgency of delivering CCS in the lead up to Copenhagen. The plan calls for governments to:

• Recognise the CCS imperative, as a precondition for energy security and climate security;
• Pledge build no new coal plants without significant CCS capacity running from the start, with a view to full CCS with all new plants by 2020;
• Call on all major industrialised countries to commit similarly;
• Commit to work in the G8 towards agreement next year on a detailed blueprint for the 20 commercial scale demos, including credible financing plans and an accelerated timetable for the plants to be operational by 2015;
• Commit to work with emerging economies to enable them to host at least four of these demos, to facilitate the necessary conditions including on finance and intellectual property and to encourage adoption of the 2020 timetable; and
• Pledge to work together towards a Copenhagen deal architecture, including financial mechanisms and sectoral agreements explicitly designed to accelerate the deployment of CCS.

Ashton also praised Australia's efforts on CCS. He said: "Australia has shown real leadership," in particular by:

• Allocating $2.4 billion towards low carbon coal technologies;
• Commitment to establish several CCS demonstration sites by 2015; and
• Launching the Global Carbon Capture Storage Institute as a global knowledge house on CCS deployment.

Ashton is in Australia Sept 9-11. He is discussing CCS with industry, business and government officials in the lead up to the Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum (CSLF), a ministerial meeting of leading international technology groups on CCS. The CSLF will be co-hosted by the UK and Norway in London, Oct 12-14.

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