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1. Introduction

The 2018 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on 1.5°C (IPCC, 2018) underscored the imperative of employing a diverse range of solutions to address climate change. This encompasses the adoption of carbon capture and storage (CCS) and negative emissions technologies (NETs) like direct air capture with carbon storage (DACCS) and bioenergy with CCS (BECCS). Furthermore, in July 2021, the Joint G20 Energy-Climate Ministerial Communique recognised the crucial role of carbon capture, use, and storage (CCUS). It acknowledged the necessity for investment and financing in advanced and clean technologies, including CCUS/Carbon Recycling. The communique urged all members to develop long-term strategies that outline pathways consistent with achieving a balance between anthropogenic emissions and removal through sinks. Failing to extensively deploy these vital technologies will likely result in a global temperature increase exceeding 2°C before the end of the century. 

CCS technologies refer to a range of techniques used to capture and store carbon dioxide emissions from emission sources. These technologies represent a promising means of removing carbon dioxide (CO2) from ongoing processes and extracting previously released emissions through direct air capture. CCS provides a hybrid solution that offers both direct mitigation and removal of emissions, making it a valuable tool in achieving the aims of all actors in the climate and energy multidimensional challenges. As it allows the continuation of known and mature energy demand processes in a low-carbon environment, thus it ensures alleviating the economic impacts associated with limiting global warming to below 2°C by the end of the century. 

Despite its undeniable significance, the estimated operational and developmental capacity of CCS remains insufficient to achieve the projected targets of limiting global warming to below 2°C. The gap between the current technological progress and the required technology deployment scale underscores the utmost importance of enhancing investment and fostering collaboration between energy producers and consumers to scale up CCS. 

This commentary aims to highlight the significance of CCS as a climate solution for reducing emissions from both the energy demand and supply sides. Additionally, it will present a quantitative analysis of the role of CCS, as well as the necessary scale and pace of deployment, based on the latest energy scenarios dataset produced for the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (2021). Finally, the commentary will review the historical progress and development of CCS, while underscoring the existing gap between current advancements and the necessary technology deployment to achieve the goal of limiting global warming to below 2°C.

2. CCS advantages 

CCS has emerged as a fundamental solution that supports global decarbonisation and ensures reduced climate mitigation cost. CCS provides a development pathway that permits existing industries and industrial processes to continue functioning in a low-carbon economy. Furthermore, it allows for capturing past emissions from the atmosphere. Thus, it fits the target of all actors in energy and climate-interrelated challenges by reducing energy-related emissions.  

CCS can be integrated with existing power generation plants to allow them to function in a low-carbon economy without the need to retire them. This reduces the economic impact of decarbonising the power generation sector, which is responsible for a large share of CO2 emissions. In 2021, it accounted for 36% of global CO2 emissions. 

Furthermore, CCS presents a practical solution for decarbonising hard-to-abate industries, such as steel and cement, which contribute to approximately 25% and 27% of global industrial CO2 emissions, respectively (UNECE, 2022). Notably, progress is being made in industrial applications of CCS. Currently, the construction of the first CCS-equipped cement plant is underway in Norway. Similarly, in the United Kingdom, a net-zero cement plant is being built, incorporating CCS technology. For iron and steel production, there is currently only one fully operational CCS-equipped plant, located in the United Arab Emirates.

Additionally, CCS can effectively address emissions originating from the supply side. This technology plays a crucial role in reducing CO2 emissions associated with the processing of natural gas, thereby minimising the environmental impact of natural gas production. Notably, successful projects such as Sleipner and Snøhvit in Norway, along with the recently operational Qatar LNG CCS, have demonstrated the effectiveness of CCS in this aspect. At present, the predominant application of CCS technology is observed in natural gas processing, which accounts for approximately 70% of operational CCS projects globally. This amounts to around 30 MtCO2, representing the majority of CCS deployment in operation.

In addition to its role in reducing emissions from energy demand and supply sides, CCS enables the production of low-carbon hydrogen that can play a substantial role in decarbonising hard-to-abate sectors. CCS technologies offer a development pathway to the existing carbon-intensive conventional hydrogen production processes to produce blue hydrogen, which currently has substantial cost benefits over other hydrogen types. Nowadays, almost all hydrogen is produced from hydrocarbons. The most widely used hydrogen production technology is steam-methane reforming (SMR). This method accounts for around 75%, or 70 MtH2, of global hydrogen production (Massarweh et al., 2023). This mature process involves utilising high-temperature steam to produce hydrogen from a methane source, typically natural gas. The resulting specific CO2 emission of the produced hydrogen is estimated at 8.5 KgCO2/KgH2 (Katebah et al., 2022). By implementing CCS, the specific CO2 emissions of hydrogen production from SMR can be reduced by 90%. It is worth noting that applying CCS to SMR with a CO2 capture rate of 90% may result in a 35% increase in the cost of the produced hydrogen, yet is more economically competitive than hydrogen produced from electrolysis.

Furthermore, CCS not only offers a cost-effective solution for reducing energy-related emissions but also serves as a risk mitigation strategy for oil and gas exporters. In a world striving for lower emissions, CCS can enable oil and gas exporters to monetise their reserves, expand the utilisation of oil and gas assets for carbon storage, and drive the demand for subsurface technical expertise in the oil and gas industry. This not only ensures the economic sustainability of oil and gas exporters but also enables them to generate the necessary revenues for diversifying their economies, even in a low-emission economy. CCS is thus a win-win technology.   

3.  A key technology in limiting global temperature rise

In order to quantify the importance of CCS as a climate solution, the scenarios produced for the Working Group III of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report are used. These scenarios describe possible realisations of global energy under different sets of energy policy and technology assumptions. Also, the scenarios were classified according to their resulting global temperature increase at the end of the century. The dataset of the scenarios was used to compare the demand of each energy source in each emission category that meets limiting global warming to 2°C or below (1.5°C, 1.5°C with overshoot, 2°C with high probability “P>67%”, and 2°C with medium probability “P>50%”) as presented in Figure 1. 

Figure 1 Distribution of primary energy demand by fuel in 2050 for different global warming at the end of the century

_{Source: GECF based on AR6 Scenario explorer and database hosted by IIASA, Edward Byers, Volker Krey, Elmar Kriegler, Keywan Riahi, et al., 2022. Found at: data.ece.iiasa.ac.at/ar6//}

Figure 1 presents the distribution of the projected primary energy demand for each energy source at different emissions categories in boxplots.  These boxplots allow for a convenient comparison of scenario expectations for each energy source, where the body of each boxplot represents the projected demand range.

From Figure 1, if the 2°C target is met, fossil fuels will still make up the majority of the energy mix as indicated by the higher natural gas, and oil projected demand, followed by solar and wind. Interestingly, if the 1.5°C target is achieved, fossil fuels are still occupying a large share of the global energy mix. As a result, the continued use of fossil fuels is indispensable in almost all scenarios that aim to simulate limiting the temperature rise to below 2°C. However, the use of fossil fuels unavoidably results in CO2 emissions, highlighting the crucial requirement for the widespread deployment of carbon mitigation and removal technologies like CCS.

From the same dataset, the IPCC assessed energy scenarios dataset,  a visual representation of the projected range of CCS capacities was generated for each temperature rise category in 2040 and 2050 as shown in Figure 2. The results suggest that to effectively constrain the global temperature increase to 2°C or less by the end of the century, it is estimated that the necessary global CCS capacities would be within the range of 4,000 to 12,000 MtCO2 by 2050. It is important to note that a positive correlation exists between the level of CCS technology deployment and the degree of reduction in temperature rise. As the climate target becomes more ambitious, the level of CCS deployment increases accordingly. Furthermore, in addition to the magnitude of CCS implementation, the speed at which the technology is developed also plays a significant role. This is evident as the 1.5°C category requires higher CCS deployment in 2040 and 2050 than the 2°C. In summary, in order to meet ambitious climate targets, it is imperative to accelerate and expand the deployment of CCS technology.

Figure 2 CO2 to be captured in 2040 and 2050 based on IPCC assessed scenarios (MtCO2)

_{Source: GECF based on AR6 Scenario explorer and database hosted by IIASA, Edward Byers, Volker Krey, Elmar Kriegler, Keywan Riahi, et al., 2022. Found at: data.ece.iiasa.ac.at/ar6//} 

4.  Unprecedented momentum and the need for getting to gigatonnes

Despite the diversified role of CCS on the demand and supply sides of the energy sector, the progress in technology deployment has been slow as shown in Figure 3. Between 2010 and 2017, the number of facilities actively invested in CCS technology (early development, advanced development, under construction, or operating) declined from 77 to 37. The cancellation of large-scale projects such as the Texas Clean Energy Project in the U.S. and the White Rose and Don Valley projects in the UK contributed to this decline, primarily due to economic reasons (Skobelev et al., 2023). Moreover, substantial project delays over the years have resulted in reduced investments and eroded confidence in the technology (Martin-Roberts et al., 2021). In general, limited access to funding, inadequate infrastructure and lack of supportive policies are recognised as the main barriers hindering CCS development (Vreys et al., 2019). CCS, being primarily driven by climate mitigation without generating direct revenue, faces challenges in securing financing and scaling. Moreover, the lack of a profitable business model hampers private sector involvement (OIES, 2022). Generally, the pace at which CCS development was progressing before 2020 could have potentially achieved a global capacity of 700 MtCO2pa by 2050 (Martin-Roberts et al., 2021). The projected technology deployment based on its historical progress before 2020 is only a fraction of the level of technology deployment required to limit the global temperature increase to below 2°C.

However, after 2020, increased interest in clean technologies, including CCS, added a wave of capacity development, research and development, and recognition of the role of CCS in climate mitigation in nationally determined contributions (NDCs) and long-term low-emissions strategies. For example, fourteen countries had CCS in their NDCs as of July 2021 (CCS Institute, 2021). The list of countries included developed and developing countries as well as energy exporters. The number of countries considering carbon capture technologies in their long-term low-emission development strategies is on the rise. 

Figure 3 CO2 capturing capacities to 2030 by region

_{Source: GECF based on data from the Global CCS Institute, and announcements made by companies}

In 2022, the estimation of CCS capacities in operation is 42 MtCO2. Considering the projects in operation and development, the expected carbon capture capacities in operation increases to 260 MtCO2 by 2030 as shown in Figure 3. The majority of these projects will go towards geological storage, accounting for 200 MtCO2pa, while EOR applications will account for 43 MtCO2. As the majority of projects are dedicated towards geological storage, as mentioned earlier, it does not currently have a profitable business model. This is why it is imperative to devise mechanisms that facilitate substantial financing for large-scale CCS projects and establish incentives to encourage geological storage to close the gap, as highlighted in Figure 4, between the current CCS deployment and the required scale to limit global temperature rise to below 2°C.  One potential course of action involves the implementation of a burden-sharing mechanism, whereby the responsibility for financing CCS is shared between energy suppliers and consumers (OIES, 2022). 

Throughout history, the advancement of CCS has been characterised by a slow pace. However, in recent years, a significant acceleration has been witnessed, bringing a more promising outlook for the deployment of CCS technology. Nevertheless, the current scale of implementation falls short of what is projected by energy scenarios as necessary to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 or 2°C.

Figure 4 CCS projected capacity in operation in 2030 and the range of CCS capacity requirement to limit global temperature rise to below 2°C in 2040 and 2050

_{Source: GECF}

5. Conclusion 

CCS has emerged as a crucial element in achieving a low-carbon future. Meeting the climate target of limiting global warming to below 2°C by the end of the century requires the widespread implementation of CCS, with a range of 4 to 12 gigatons of CO2 by 2050. While historical barriers, such as insufficient financing,  lack of supportive policies and profitable business models, have hindered CCS deployment, recent advancements have been driven by supportive government policies including providing direct financing for CCS projects, research and development grants, and subsidies.

The commitment of governments to support clean technologies, including CCS, has led to an estimated CCS capacity in operation of 260 million tons of CO2 by 2030. However, there remains a substantial gap between this capacity and the amount required to effectively limit global temperature increase. Therefore, the rapid development of CCS technologies assumes the utmost significance.

To bridge the gap in CCS deployment, it is imperative to devise mechanisms that facilitate substantial financing for large-scale CCS projects and continued research and development to reduce its current cost. Additionally, establishing incentives to encourage geological storage and sharing the burden of these projects between energy suppliers and consumers can play a pivotal role in scaling up the technology. Furthermore, incorporating CCS in climate financing programs can provide further support for its development and deployment. These measures will be vital in expediting CCS deployment and ensuring its integral contribution to climate change mitigation efforts.