On both sides of the Atlantic Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) has become an essential feature of energy and climate policy frameworks towards ambitious net-zero goals, despite ongoing debates about feasibility and risks.
As the pressures of climate change and political debates intensify, it is imperative to assess societal perspectives in the context of a "right" balance between the climate benefits and the associated costs and risks of large-scale CCS deployments.
This paper, as part of a large multinational research effort, investigates public preferences for climate, technical, and regulatory attributes of CCS deployment. The study is based on at from a web-based survey and embedded economic choice experiments that generates willingness-to-pay estimates for representative populations across Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and the UK.

The results reveal that while respondents were neutral about the strategic deployment of CCS in their country, concerns about induced earthquake risks would significantly influence public preferences more than the anticipated climate mitigative benefits of CCS. In all five countries, citizens strongly prefer the presence of rigorous and transparent monitoring procedures for CCS seismic incidents. However, public preferences vary significantly across national contexts and in distinct ways. Successful framing of CCS deployment requires more than emphasizing its role in mitigating climate change or ensuring transparent monitoring systems. Building knowledge that Builds public trust in responsible stakeholders and actively engages and consults citizens in the planning stages of CCS deployment are found essential for successful commercialization of long-term carbon storage technologies.