The Global Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) Institute was officially launched at an event jointly hosted by the President of the United States, Barack Obama and Italy’s Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi in L’Aquila, Italy on June 10.

The launch followed a meeting of the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate.

The Institute is an international initiative, led by Australia, to speed up the development of carbon capture and storage technology and reduce the amount of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere. It will play a significant role in delivering the G8’s goal of developing at least 20 fully integrated industrial-scale CCS demonstration projects around the world by 2020.

 The Institute’s International Advisory Panel which will be chaired by the former President of the World Bank, James Wolfensohn. Lord Nicholas Stern from the UK is also on the board.

Some 131 entities are members of the Institute, including 23 national governments and over 100 major companies and organisations.