From the U.K. to Brazil: How Global Carbon Capture Governance is Converging Ahead of COP30

SFLCT’s Chairman of the Board, Fernando C. Hernandez, announces Brazil’s Fuel of the Future law at the CCSA Flagship Conference in London, October 2024

The SFLCT, including Strategic Advisor Cassandra Dewan, meeting at the British Consulate in Rio de Janeiro with officials including Flavia Silva de Castro, June 2025

HOUSTON, TX, UNITED STATES, November 2, 2025 /EINPresswire.com/ -- As the United Nations’ COP30 approaches, the U.K. and Brazil have, within a twelve-month window, delivered some of the most consequential carbon capture advancements. The U.K. finalized its $28 billion Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS) commitment, while Brazil passed its Fuel of the Future program, which includes South America’s first CCUS law, alongside direct air capture plants operating in both nations. The Atlantic now stands as a fulcrum for carbon governance, linking the U.K.’s COP26 legacy with Brazil’s COP30 leadership.

Amid this convergence stands the Society for Low Carbon Technologies (SFLCT), an international organization operating across the Global South and North. SFLCT helped shape Brazil’s CCUS law, and its Chairman of the Board, Fernando C. Hernandez, was present in London—not Brasília—when the U.K. announced its funding commitment and when Brazil’s president signed the CCUS law. This transpired in October 2024 at the Carbon Capture and Storage Association’s (CCSA) flagship conference, and has continued evolving this year ahead of COP30.

Hernandez and Olivia Powis, CEO of the CCSA, had first engaged on the emerging transatlantic low-carbon corridor in June 2024 via Rio de Janeiro, demonstrating presence on both continents. This rare positioning, thanks to the CCSA’s conference, gave SFLCT and Hernandez a unique transatlantic vantage point, bridging his Business Ambassador to Scotland role with his Latin American roots. It was at the CCSA’s conference that he moderated a panel featuring leading voices, including Heidelberg Materials, as the company prepared to sequester emissions at the Northern Lights offshore site in Europe’s North Sea. During the London session, he opened the panel in both Portuguese and English.

He then announced Brazil’s passage of the Fuel of the Future law. This took place at London’s Central Hall Westminster, the venue of the first UN General Assembly in 1946, connecting symbolically back to the United Nations and COP30. “Reflecting on London in 2024 and witnessing the U.K. and Brazil reach historic milestones underscores how global collaboration must continue across the Global South and North ahead of COP30,” exclaims Hernandez.

Full circle: At the CCSA’s 2025 London conference in October, Carlos Cabral, a Director from Brazil’s Ministry of Mines and Energy (MME), highlighted key components of the nation’s decarbonization pathway, including its bioenergy-to-carbon capture approach. Importantly, the MME leads a CCUS Subcommittee tied to the carbon capture law, with SFLCT participating alongside FS Energia, Petrobras, ANP, and other key organizations. As previously noted by SFLCT, this anchors Brazil’s position at COP30 and beyond, demonstrating how low-carbon diplomacy can translate into regulatory clarity, financial innovation, and technical scalability.

At the CCSA’s 2025 flagship conference, Powis said, “This is a defining moment for the U.K.’s CCUS industry. We are moving from ambition to action, with projects breaking ground, investments flowing, and jobs being created across our industrial regions.” This momentum is reinforced by numerous CCUS U.K. projects reaching final investment decisions since last year.

Earlier this year, the British Consulate in Rio de Janeiro (with whom SFLCT actively engaged before the law’s passage) played a key role in organizing a U.K.–Brazil trade delegation that included the Agência Nacional do Petróleo, Gás Natural e Biocombustíveis (ANP) and other Brazilian institutions to strengthen bilateral relations. The delegation visited the CCSA office and infrastructure linked to the U.K.’s major carbon capture commitment. Today, ANP holds regulatory authority over this domain, including oversight of the first Brazilian well drilled for carbon storage by FS Energia.

What lies ahead? Reports in Broadcast/Estadão from September and a more recent one from Eixos indicate that a presidential decree strengthening the CCUS law is expected during the COP30 timeframe. With the U.K. and other nations now injecting CO₂, Brazil is to be watched closely, notes Hernandez.

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