Australian Prime minister Kevin Rudd shaking hands with U.S. President Barrack Obama at the L'aquia G8 Summit after announcing the formal establishment of GCCSI on July 9, 2009 

The G8 Hokkaido Toyako Summit set the target of launching 20 large scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) demonstration projects globally, including in developing countries by 2010.  To achieve this target, the Australian government played a central role to establish the Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute (GCCSI), an international institute aimed at accelerating the worldwide commercial deployment of CCS projects.

JBIC supported this movement by signing a memorandum of understanding for cooperation in promoting CCS projects with the Australian government in February 2009 and formally began participation in GCCSI as a member on September 7, 2009. 

CCS is a set of technologies for capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from coal-fired power plants as well as oil and gas fields, and storing CO2 in deep geological formations and deep ocean floors.  CCS is drawing attention as a new approach to substantially reducing CO2 emissions from the atmosphere.  Yet significant initial investment costs pose the challenge of economic viability.  In addition, some further research remains in the technical aspects for storage of CO2 and its physical effect on the environment.  For these reasons, CCS projects have not yet been undertaken extensively.

Given this state of affairs, GCCSI will identify and select pilot CCS projects across the world, including in developing countries and perform its activities ranging from support for research and development for CCS pilot projects to public relations world wide.  In this way, GCCSI is expected to play a leadership role in finding solutions to a range of problems associated with CCS in a step by step manner in order to scale up CCS projects internationally. 

JBIC will encourage Japanese industries to broadly participate in CCS projects and mobilize their corporate technologies, while providing financial advice based on its lending experience in resources development and climate change mitigation projects. 

JBIC will support Japanese industries for developing overseas business associated with CCS, while pursuing closer partnerships with relevant domestic and foreign CCS organizations.