Findings of regional surveys by Bart Terwel and Emma ter Mors

At the start of CATO-2, the WP5.1 research plans included repeated surveys among residents living near (proposed) onshore CCS activities. The aim of these repeated regional surveys was to monitor local public awareness, knowledge, perceptions, beliefs, and attitudes concerning CCS. However, the need for regional surveys was gone after the decision made by the Dutch government (February 14, 2011) to withdraw its support for (onshore) CO2 storage. Instead of the repeated regional surveys, WP5.1 researchers thus developed and executed alternative research plans, which were developed after consultations with CATO-2 consortium partners and Executive Board. As a consequence, this deliverable only discusses findings from two regional surveys that were conducted before the Dutch government decided to withdraw its support: a survey conducted in the Northern Netherlands (October 2009) and a survey conducted in Barendrecht (May 2010). In this deliverable, we center our discussion around two primary themes rather than repeating all specifics (e.g., procedure, detailed results) of the surveys. These themes concern (1) CCS-related knowledge and misconceptions, and (2) issues of trust. For all specifics of the surveys we refer to previous deliverables (CATO-2-WP5.1- D02 and CATO-2-WP5.1-D14).