Climate Action 2010-2011

Energy and Mitigation
Naturally, trees capture carbon dioxide but CCS projects are now being
developed to help this process.
CCS: an
essential
element in
achieving
climate goals
Nobuo Tanaka
Executive Director of the International Energy Agency
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology
– whereby CO 2
emissions from industry are
captured and sequestered underground to limit their
global warming potential – has a very significant role
to play worldwide in reaching global carbon emissions
targets, says Nobuo Tanaka, executive director of
the International Energy Agency. It is vital that
governments move now to increase their investment
in research and development (R&D), in mapping
potential CO 2
storage locations and then implement
CCS technology across a number of industrial sectors.
Fossil fuels presently account for 81 per cent of global
primary energy supply, and 68 per cent of global electricity
production. Given energy demand trends especially
in non-Organisation for Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD) countries, fossil fuels are expected
to remain a significant portion of the energy mix through
to 2050, even as alternative energy sources grow rapidly.
The energy sector accounts for more than 80 per cent of
global CO 2
emissions and 60 per cent of all greenhouse gas
(GHG) emissions. To prevent significant climate change,
global CO 2
emissions must be halved by 2050. Can this
reduction be achieved while we are still so dependent on
fossil fuels? The answer is yes, but we will need all energy
technologies, and the broad deployment of CCS in both
power and industrial sectors must play a key role.
According to International Energy Agency Energy
Technology Perspectives 2010, CCS contributes significantly
to the least-cost route of reducing and stabilising CO 2
emissions in the atmosphere, representing 19 per cent
of total emissions reductions in 2050 in the BLUE
Map Scenario (which aims at halving energy-related
CO 2
emissions by 2050). Yet the world needs to better
understand the role of CCS in a sustainable energy future.
Incentives must then be put in place to encourage CCS
investment globally.
The last few years have seen increasing interest in
CCS technologies at the highest political levels. At their
Gleneagles Summit in 2005, the G8 Leaders committed to
“work to accelerate the deployment and commercialisation
of Carbon Capture and Storage technology”. In 2008,
the G8 Leaders recommended that 20 large-scale CCS
demonstration projects should be launched by 2010 with a
view to beginning broad deployment of CCS by 2020.
The ‘Roadmap’ for CCS
To further detail the pathway to CCS deployment,
the International Energy Agency in 2009 published
a CCS roadmap with the following findings and
recommendations:
• To achieve its GHG mitigation potential, some 100
large-scale CCS projects are needed globally by 2020
and over 3,000 projects by 2050, equalling an additional
investment of over US$2.5-3 trillion from 2010 to 2050;
• Although the developed world must lead the CCS effort
in the next decade, CCS technology must also spread
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