Connecting public responses to engagement practice in CCS deployment: an integrative framework

Risk communication and public engagement are routinely treated as necessary for the deployment of carbon capture and storage (CCS), yet projects that invest substantially in both can still encounter opposition, delay or cancellation. The difficulty is not simply a lack of evidence about what shapes public responses: successive reviews have already consolidated findings on public perceptions and community acceptance. A remaining gap lies in how this knowledge is translated into practice. Existing guidance addresses local context, stakeholder identification and dialogue, but does not organise engagement around the distinct psychosocial processes through which publics respond. This review develops a framework built around four interrelated processes: trustworthiness judgments about responsible actors; cognitive evaluation of the project, including perceived benefits, risks, costs and distributive fairness; affective and associative responses to the project and technology; and legitimacy judgments concerning process, authority and justification. These responses are conditioned by the material, siting and governance characteristics of the project. The framework links them to differentiated communicative and participatory practices across the project lifecycle. The result is both a research agenda for evaluating currently under-tested propositions and a practical framework for engagement that moves beyond a narrow emphasis on information provision and consultation.