James Coleman, energy law professor at the University of Minnesota, presented a webinar on carbon capture and storage for the University of Houston Law Center’s Environment, Energy and Natural Resource Center.
Coleman (in the upper right box) highlighted how CCS will be central to global climate policy in the coming decades. Moderator Qaraman Hasan, a research scholar at the EENR Center, is pictured in the lower right box.
April 23, 2025 – Net-zero — the idea that what goes up in the environment will come out of the environment at the same rate — along with the carbon capture and storage was the focus of a recent webinar featuring James W. Coleman, an energy law professor at the University of Minnesota. Coleman's research focuses on addressing critical energy policy issues, particularly around energy infrastructure and its regulation.
The event, with more than 160 attendees, was hosted by the University of Houston Law Center and sponsored by the Environment, Energy and Natural Resource Center. The title of the webinar was “Carbon Capture and Storage: The Key to a Net-Zero Economy.”
“Why is there so much interest in carbon capture and storage? It all goes back to why would you want to store carbon? The principal benefit, of course, is in reducing climate change. This is the basic challenge that we face…if the world continues to emit carbon and [the] carbon emissions are unconstrained, our sort of baseline emission trajectory that we’re seeing suggests that we could get warming as high as four degrees,” Coleman explained. “Now, those who monitor this are saying that’s less and less likely over time, in part because we do have some policies in place that both incentivize clean energy and also encourage efficiency, as well as limit emissions.”
The U.S., as both the world’s largest economy and leading oil and gas producer, is positioned to shape global CCS efforts, Coleman said, adding that Texas with its ever-growing clean energy exploration and investment, is the hands-down favorite to lead the way in carbon capture and storage technology development.
The challenge associated with attaining net-zero carbon repercussions is simple: Energy demand is not going away.
“The expected use of fossil fuel simply continues to increase over time. Oil demand continues to rise. Now, there’s an open question about how long oil demand will continue to rise given increased use of electric vehicles…But we know that electric vehicles haven’t taken off as quickly as some expected them to,” Coleman said. “And there are a lot of other uses for oil, whether it’s in manufacturing, plastics, etc.”
Incentives under the Inflation Reduction Act could top $1 trillion, he noted, but regulatory uncertainty — particularly over land ownership for carbon storage sites — remains a barrier. But Coleman warned that backtracking on regulations, such as potential changes to the Clean Air Act, could slow progress.
The webinar was moderated by Qaraman Hasan, a research scholar at the EENR who teaches international environmental law.
