This article is part of The Climate Frontline, Apolitical's monthly climate newsletter.

It was only last month that the world was on a knife edge waiting to hear the outcomes of the latest climate talks of COP28.

During lengthy discussions, one word in particular divided the negotiating tables. It held the key to what a transition away from fossil fuels would look like.

That word was ‘unabated’ — the burning of fossil fuels that directly releases greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere, contributing to global warming.

While some parties wanted a deal phasing out all fossil fuels, the final outcome saw countries agree to “move away from fossil fuels in energy systems” and “phase-down of unabated coal power”.

In other words, a seal of approval for the continued burning of fossil fuels as long as the resulting emissions are ‘abated’ — or caught using technologies like carbon capture.

In this latest article of The Climate Frontline, Apolitical deep dives into the technologies that could keep fossil fuel emissions in check. We’ll take a look at what these technologies offer and consider the role they may play in our battle against climate change.

A climate fix?

With global temperatures breaking records from year to year, we find ourselves on a worrying trajectory. We face breaching the 1.5˚C global warming threshold set by the Paris Agreement potentially as soon as this year.

Despite growing efforts to reverse the trend, we continue to rampantly burn fossil fuels and pump global warming-inducing emissions into the atmosphere. What’s more, weaning off fossil fuels is particularly challenging for some sectors like aviation and agriculture that currently lack viable or scalable alternatives.

Blocking the release of these pollutants, perhaps then, sounds like a win-win climate solution; and to help us do so, carbon capture — a concept first developed in the 1970s is gathering increasing global attention.

Formally known as carbon capture and storage (CCS), these technologies capture carbon emissions at their source — commonly at power stations of industrial plants. The captured emissions are then stored underground to prevent them entering the atmosphere. Carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) takes it a step further — the emissions may also be used to produce construction materials like concrete or turned into fuel or food.

Nevertheless, the promise of carbon capture has so far been largely unfulfilled. The technologies play a relatively insignificant role in mitigating climate change, capturing just 0.1% of global carbon emissions, as of 2022 — that’s around 45 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide. To limit warming to 1.5˚C, the IEA states that carbon capture will need to play a much bigger role in climate mitigation — capturing several billion tonnes of carbon dioxide from the energy sector by 2050.

So what if reducing emissions is not enough on its own to limit warming to 1.5˚C? Well, CCS also offers further promise, underpinning many negative emissions technologies (NETs) that aim to remove carbon already in the atmosphere. These include direct air capture (DAC) that uses chemical reactions to extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and bioenergy carbon capture and storage (BECCS) which involves using plant biomass to generate power, and then capture and store the resultant emissions.

The IPCC argues that NETs are not just an option but a necessity to keep the world below 2˚C warming.

Or more trouble than it’s worth?

The last few years have seen more and more countries actively integrating CCS into their climate goals. In 2021, the United States invested billions of dollars of government funding to advance carbon capture. Last year, the European Union set out the world’s first legally binding target for underground carbon storage capacity. And just a few months ago, Indonesia launched its first CCUS project in West Papau.

But not everyone sees NETs as part of the climate solution. The European Academies Science Advisory Council wrote in 2018 that “these technologies offer only limited realistic potential to remove carbon from the atmosphere.”

They continued saying that “placing an unrealistic expectation on such technologies could have irreversibly damaging consequences on future generations in the event of them failing to deliver. This would be a moral hazard which would be the antithesis of sustainable development.”

One major concern is that these technologies act as a plaster over the real problem — stopping our use of fossil fuels. And they can even perpetuate the problem by locking in our reliance on fossil fuels. This makes NETs the favoured solution of many fossil fuel companies.

Many also point to the mixed record of success with several projects underperforming or being abandoned. They often entail high costs, are incredibly energy-intensive and remain unproven at scale — no existing project has yet reached its target for carbon capture.

CCS technologies also bring with them a number of negative health and environmental impacts through construction and potential leakage that disproportionately harm vulnerable communities.

Clearing up the ambiguity

Despite the challenges, it’s clear that carbon capture remains part of our vision for achieving net zero by 2050. But its role remains clouded in ambiguity.

Ever since ‘unabated’ first cropped up during COP26 in 2021, questions still exist about what the word actually means in practice.

For example, could emissions still be abated if only 10% of the carbon dioxide produced from a coal-fired power plant were captured?

The closest we’ve got to a universally-agreed official definition comes as a footnote of the IPCC report. It defines unabated fossil fuels as “produced and used without interventions that substantially reduce the amount of GHG emitted throughout the life cycle; for example, capturing 90% or more CO2 from power plants.”

Clearly, the success of carbon capture hinges on high carbon capture rates — of the 41 CCUS projects currently in operation, capture rates are at best 65%. But a rigorous definition also needs to take into account the permanent storage of carbon dioxide, emissions from the production and transport of fossil fuels, and monitoring, reporting and verification.

What’s next for carbon capture?

Carbon capture technologies are likely to play some role in tackling climate change. In particular, they offer a solution for sectors that are challenging to decarbonise in the near term.

What’s important is to strike the right balance. To make sure that these technologies don’t become a distraction from the real solutions of cutting emissions in the first place.

For this, governments need to set out clear guidelines on exactly how carbon capture fits into their net zero goals, be realistic about how much of a role these technologies can play and ensure responsible and sustainable practices.

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(Image credit: Unsplash)