The GCC's Carbon Roadmap

With carbon capture and storage marked as a key technology in fighting climate change, the Gulf states are investing big in new infrastructure to make sure the region stands out as a sustainability leader.

- Jamila Gandhi

In 2023, the planet grappled with the harsh reality of rising temperatures as it endured the hottest year on record, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service. Nations globally are engaged in a frenzied race against time, striving to limit temperature escalation by mid-century. At the forefront of this battle are carbon capture technologies, a process of extracting carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere and trapping it in some form.

The significance of carbon removal echoes the sentiments outlined in the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement adopted at COP21, which hails it as one of many strategies to mitigate climate change and cap the Earth’s temperature rise at 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. In 2023, Wood Mackenzie found that achieving the net-zero emissions target by 2050 demands an annual carbon capture capacity of seven billion tons.

In its updated Net Zero Roadmap, the International Energy Agency stated that if all CCUS’s projects in the pipeline were realized, CO2 capture capacity would increase more than eight times from about 45 million tons to almost 400 million tons annually by 2030 and would provide nearly 40% of what is needed by 2030 globally. Notably, Wood Mackenzie projected in 2022 that carbon capture technology can contribute up to 20% of the emissions reduction needed for global net zero by 2050.

As of December 2023, the Global CCS Institute identified over 390 carbon capture and storage (CCS) facilities in diverse stages of development worldwide. In the corporate realm, 2023 witnessed widespread support for carbon capture technology.