TotalEnergies is committed to working towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to ensure a brighter and more sustainable future for all. For this reason, the Company is constructing a sustainable development approach based on four pillars: integrating climate change into its business strategy, protecting the environment, respecting and mobilizing employees and suppliers, and contributing to the economic development of the regions where it operates.

To this end, the Northern Lights project, because of its co-benefits, will help to achieve three of the SDGs and to meet specific targets:

• SDG 7 – Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all
• The project ensures the generation of reliable, sustainable, and modern energy by transporting and storing the emissions from power plants.
• SDG 9 – Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation
• The project’s CO₂ transport and storage service provides a solution for the CO₂ captured by industrial companies and will therefore enable the development of a sustainable, low-carbon industry in Europe.
• SDG 13 – Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts
• The aim of the project is to develop geological storage capacity, which is essential for fighting climate change.

The Northern Lights solution can be replicated for all emitters (waste-to-energy, hydrogen, cement and steel producers and other CO₂ emitters) as well as for all communities who would like to be involved in the decarbonization effort.

To date, 15 projects are being examined in Europe. No such project is currently being envisaged in France.

Climate-related issues:

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has described CCS technology as essential in order to achieve a worldwide “net-zero” carbon balance by the second half of the 21^st century.

Today, approximately 40 Mt ofCO₂/year      are stored underground. In its 2020 “Sustainable Development” scenario, the International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that these volumes must be increased to 900 Mt ofCO₂/year by 2030 and 5.4 Gt of CO₂/year by 2050 in order to meet the Paris Agreement objectives. The European bodies agree with this growth requirement, and the Commission recommends developing CCUS capacities by 80 and 300 Mt of CO₂/year.

In France, the National Low-Carbon Strategy (SNBC) has set a target of achieving Net Zero by 2050. Its reference scenario, “With Additional Measures” (Avec Mesures Supplémentaires – AMS) forecasts 15 Mt of CO₂/year of CCS (5 Mt of CO₂/year in the industry and 10 Mt ofCO₂/year      in bioenergy). The ADEME has selected three industrial centers of interest for CCS deployment (Dunkirk, Le Havre-Rouen, and Lacq), with a combined potential capacity of 24 Mt of CO₂/year.

Conditions for the project’s success:

In the project’s later stages of development, it will be possible to increase capacity at the site according to market demand from major CO₂ emitters across Europe.

The main conditions for the success of the project and of the CCS industry as a whole, are as follows:

• The Net Zero ambitions of governments, companies, and communities.
• Transposing these ambitions into quantified targets and implementation plans.

And by creating value for CO₂ through:

• Recognition of the added value of low-carbon products (cement, steel, chemicals, etc.).
• Decarbonization incentives based on regulations as well as carbon taxation.

TotalEnergies is working in partnership with Equinor and Shell on this project.

The Norwegian government is supporting the project through subsidies in return for reserving 0.8 MtCO₂/year of storage capacity over the first 10 years of operation.

Business development

A non-binding Memorandum of Understanding has already been signed with nine European companies for the development of CO₂ capture and storage value chains. The signatory companies include Air Liquide, Arcelor Mittal, Ervia, Fortum, Preem, HeidelbergCement, and Stockholm Exergi.

The establishment of binding commercial agreements will depend, among other things, on a favorable decision by the Norwegian authorities, the decision to develop CO₂ capture facilities by third-party clients and the conclusion of bilateral agreements between Norway and third-party countries, where these clients are based, for CO₂ transport and storage. This cross-sectoral collaboration provides a unique solution to managing large volumes of CO₂ and preventing their release to the atmosphere. These new value chains and the infrastructure for CCS projects can only be developed through cooperation between governments and the private sector.