Electrification must reduce emissions

Its climate impact depends on the emissions intensity and firmness of the power system supply.

CCS can play a targeted role in the energy transition by reducing emissions from power plants where appropriate, supporting firm low-carbon power, and addressing emissions from industrial supply chains required for electrification. While electrifying sectors like transportation and industry is a critical climate strategy, it does not guarantee decarbonisation if energy demand shifts to an unabated power grid. Ramping up global electrification to 35% by 2035 requires a rapid expansion of generation capacity. In regions currently dependent on high carbon-intensity power grids – particularly developing economies with young fossil fleets that cannot be affordably retired early – deploying CCS on existing assets provides a practical pathway. This approach curbs emissions while new zero- and low-carbon infrastructure, such as renewables, nuclear, and natural gas with CCS, scales to meet the increased load.

Beyond direct abatement, maintaining system reliability will be even more important as more of the economy depends on the electric grid. CCS units on fossil or biopower plants capture 90% to 95% of facility emissions while delivering dispatchable power needed to balance variable wind and solar power. This grid stabilising role will remain essential in the near to mid-term until long duration energy storage (LDES) technologies mature and scale.

To align with climate goals, effective frameworks distinguish between abated and unabated fossil generation, linking new capacity to binding abatement commitments.

Industry needs a portfolio of solutions

CCS can address process emissions and other hard-to-abate emissions in sectors such as cement, steel, and chemicals.

Deep industrial decarbonisation requires different technologies across varying sectors and processes. While some manufacturing processes can easily be electrified, heavy industries often demand high-temperature heat or generate non-combustion CO₂ emissions (process emission).

For these hard-to-abate sectors, CCS provides a direct and practical mitigation pathway. CCS acts to decarbonize the production of foundational materials required for the broader economy. This ensures that the essential materials needed for the global economy – and for building clean energy infrastructure itself – can be manufactured with a minimal climate impact.

Connecting these facilities to reliable CO₂ transport and permanent geological storage is critical for large-scale deployment. Developing shared CO₂ transport and storage infrastructure allows multiple facilities to utilise integrated industrial hubs or clusters. This shared-infrastructure model creates economies of scale, significantly lowering the economic and logistical barriers to deployment for individual plants and accelerating regional decarbonisation efforts.

Climate stabilisation requires carbon removal

To address unavoidable and legacy emissions, engineered carbon dioxide removal (CDR) approaches – such as direct air capture and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage – are essential. These technologies extract CO₂ directly from ambient air or biogenic sources and store it permanently in geological reservoirs. This counterbalances residual emissions from the hardest to abate sectors to reach net zero, while also building the capability to eventually achieve net-negative emissions and address historical CO₂ that has accumulated in the atmosphere.

Deploying engineered removal at a climate-relevant scale relies on access to reliable CO₂ transport and permanent geological storage. The shared transport and storage infrastructure being developed in the near term for industrial and power sector CCS will be invaluable for engineered CDR in the long term. By building these integrated storage hubs and transport clusters today, CCS projects are establishing the foundational network that engineered CDR facilities will increasingly rely upon. This lowers the economic and logistical barriers for future CDR projects and bridges immediate abatement from CCS with large scale CDR in the long term.

It is important to emphasise that CDR must supplement, not substitute for, immediate emissions reductions from CCS, renewables, nuclear, and other mitigation technologies and approaches. CDR is not an excuse to delay the energy transition, otherwise peak warming temperature will rise too high for engineered solutions to ever successfully pull the global temperature back down. At the same time, engineered CDR development cannot be deferred. Waiting to build CDR capacity until it is critically needed will prevent the technology from reaching the scale required to meet mid-century climate targets.

Deployment depends on public confidence

Strong regulation, monitoring, transparent evidence, and meaningful engagement are essential.

Successful deployment of carbon management technologies relies fundamentally on public confidence, enabled by strong regulatory frameworks, rigorous site monitoring, and transparent reporting. Meaningful engagement with local communities and stakeholders helps build trust that projects are developed safely, equitably, and with clear environmental accountability.

International climate processes can help strengthen this foundational trust, providing a space to clarify where and how carbon management best contributes to overarching climate goals. International dialogue offers a critical platform to address public concerns, share regulatory best practices, and establish the shared expectations necessary for the responsible scale-up of carbon management worldwide.