Carbon capture, storage emerge as a contentious issue after COP28 meet

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.

- Jayashree Nandi

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."