Nicholas Stern — the economics professor whose climate-change report earned him an English knighthood — has said he expects the world to have an enforceable emissions-cutting treaty in place in 2009, after a meeting of the carbon-interested in Copenhagen.

With a U.S. president and presidential candidates now saying they believe in climate change, Stern told conference-goers and the Madrid Club of climate-interested ex-prime minsters this week that he still believes 50 percent cuts in emissions are necessary by 2050 to slow global warming.

“The growth of emissions has been bigger than we believed, and the concentration of climate gases in the atmosphere is increasing far faster than we believed in 2006,” Lord Stern told newspaper Aftenposten.

Despite the forecast need for cuts in Oslo, European Union environment ministers meeting in Luxembourg reportedly admitted they were moving away from “full scale” carbon capture, like the projects executed and planned in Norway.

Indeed, a number of Continental carbon capture and storage projects appear to be “medium-scale” pilots compared to the full-blown sequestration and storage shown offshore Norway and planned for onshore Norwegian power production.

In the United States, too, full scale carbon-dioxide capture at at least one giant coal plant is underway.

Scandoil.com staff were spread to the far corners of the world’s oil and gas conferences this week and did not attend the climate conference in Oslo .

Tags: CCS