Twenty years ago, on this day, November 31st, 2005,
On 30 November 2005, Minister Enoksen of Norway and Minister Wicks of the UK agreed to establish a North Sea Basin Task Force, composed of public and private bodies from countries on the rim of the North Sea. Its purpose: to develop common principles for managing and regulating the transport, injection and permanent storage of CO2 in the North Sea sub-seabed. https://www.regjeringen.no/globalassets/upload/oed/pdf_filer/rapporter/north-sea-basin-report-final.pdf
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 380ppm. As of 2025, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was that the North Sea had been an economic bonanza for both countries (only one of which had bothered to set up a sovereign wealth fund).
The specific context was – there was increased interest in CCS, and depleted North Sea oil fields seemed like a good idea…
What I think we can learn from this – we have been hoping for technofixes for a long time.
What happened next – the CCS bubble burst in 2011, and again in 2015, but thanks to astonishing lobbying, it’s back on the agenda, and is getting LOADS of money.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
Also on this day:
November 30, 1978 – House of Lords debate on Atmospheric Changes…
November 30, 1994 – Another denialist dolt – “Global warming a clouded issue”
November 30, 1998 – Exxon and Mobil merge
November 30, 2014 – US TV show The Newsroom tackles climate change