After the UN climate summit earlier this month agreed to slowly phase out fossil fuels to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, a mitigation measure known as carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) has emerged as a contentious issue among experts and analysts.
The 28th Conference of Parties (COP28) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change met in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), primarily for a global stocktake of the progress made since nearly 200 nations agreed to keep global temperature rise to well within 2 degrees Celsius and make efforts to contain it to 1.5 degrees in the 2015 Paris climate pact.
The UAE Consensus has urged countries to adopt various mitigation measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. According to the agreement, one of the means is “accelerating zero- and low-emission technologies, including, inter alia, renewables, nuclear, abatement and removal technologies such as carbon capture and utilisation and storage, particularly in hard-to-abate sectors, and low-carbon hydrogen production”.
This was in line with an analysis done by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world’s largest body of climate experts, which said: “All pathways that limit global warming to 1.5 degree Celsius with limited or no overshoot project the use of carbon dioxide removal.”
Experts have been wary of this because such a provision could allow nations to continue expanding the use of planet- warming fossil fuels while depending on carbon capture technologies in a big way.
There are no scenarios in the IPCC in which CCUS would allow continued use of fossil fuels at current levels, let alone expansion of oil and gas production, explained experts at the World Resources Institute (WRI), an international think tank. Hence, dependence on CCUS could derail the world from keeping the 1.5 degrees goal alive. Today, CCUS captures around 0.1% of global emissions, or around 45 million tons of carbon dioxide, the WRI said.
CCUS is a way to reduce emissions from sources such as power plants and industrial facilities. The carbon emissions are captured before entering the atmosphere and then either permanently stored underground or incorporated into products. Carbon dioxide removal, also mentioned in UAE consensus, removes carbon dioxide that is already in the atmosphere.
“This is a new technology. It will come at a steep cost to developing countries and we will have to see what are the results,” an Indian negotiator had said on condition of anonymity during the 2023 climate summit. “Technology sharing by developed nations will be key. We are also doing our R&D domestically,”
The petrostates, particularly Saudi Arabia, have been vocal that mitigation has to do with limiting emissions and not sources of emissions or energy. Developed countries, particularly the US and petrostates, pushed for CCUS, negotiators said. The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, for instance, will develop the Habshan carbon capture project, which will have the capacity to capture and permanently store 1.5 million tons of carbon dioxide a year, Reuters reported on September 6.