CCS can help to fulfill the worldwide ambition to limit global warming to a maximum of 2°C by 2050, provided that

1. By 2020, CO₂ capture is successfully  demonstrated in ≥ 30 projects across many sectors:

• coal- and gas-fired power generation
• gas processing
• bioethanol
• hydrogen production for chemicals and refining
• direct reduced iron (DRI)

This leads to over 50 Mt (megatonnes, million tonnes) on CO₂ safely and effectively stored per year.

 2. By 2030, CCS is routinely used to reduce emissions in power generation and industry. Successful demonstrations of CCS in industrial applications including:

•  
  • cement manufacture
  • iron and steel blast furnaces
  • pulp and paper production
  • second-generation biofuels
  • heaters & crackers at refining and chemical sites

Storage of over 2000 Mt CO₂ per year.

3. By 2050, CCS is routinely used to reduce emissions from all applicable processes in power generation & industrial applications at sites around the world.  

Storage of over 7000 Mt CO₂ per year. 

CCS contributes about 1/6 of total CO₂ emission reductions required in the scenario limiting global warming to a maximum of 2°C by 2050 (source: IEA Energy Technology Perspectives 2012). In the next decades, fossil fuels will continue to play a dominant role in primary energy consumption, increasing the urgency of CCS deployment.

At the moment, the largest challenge before this technology can be implemented on a large scale is the integration of component technologies (for instance in large-scale demonstration projects).

Furthermore, the understanding and acceptance of CCS by the public needs to improve. For instance, the fact that CCS is not only relevant for power generation. Almost half of the forecast CO₂ captured between 2015 and 2050 is  from industrial applications (45%). Moreover, the largest development of CCS will need to occur in developing countries with their rapid growth in energy demand (70% higher by 2050).

The next seven years are critical to the accelerated development of CCS as a contributor to the 2°C by 2050 scenario. The following 7 key actions lay the foundation for scaled-up CCS deployment.

1. Introduce financial support mechanisms for demonstration and early deployment of CCS  to drive private financing of projects.

2. Implement policies that encourage storage exploration, characterisation and development for CCS projects.

3. Require new-build, base-load, fossil-fuel power generation capacity to be CCS-ready and develop national laws and regulations as well as provisions for multilateral finance to encourage this.

4. Prove capture systems at pilot scale in industrial applications where CO₂ capture has not yet been demonstrated.

5. Make substantial efforts to improve public understanding of CCS technology and the importance of its deployment.

6. Reduce the cost of electricity from power plants equipped with capture through continued technology development and use of highest possible efficiency power generation cycles.

7. Encourage efficient development of CO₂ transport infrastructure by anticipating locations of future demand centres and future volumes of CO₂.