At an EU Parliament  presentation on March 8, 2018 Prof. Mike Norton of the European Academies Sscience Advisory Council , presented a new report that looked at the “not so optimistic role” of negative emission technologies – or NETs – in meeting the Paris Agreement target of limiting global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius. Global emissions stood at 41 gigatons of CO2 in 2016 and were up to 41.9 gigatons in 2017, prof. Norton explained, leaving  only 717 gigatons of CO2 in the earth’s virtual 2°C “carbon bank” and only 48 gigatons left in 2017, from 130 gigatons in 2015.

“The situation is not a very happy one,” Prof. Norton told delegates in the European Parliament on Thursday (8 March). “All these ambitious plans have all faded away” for economic or political reasons, he said referring to the four CCS demonstration projects that have been cancelled at EU level in recent years. Although the technology “will be needed” to address climate change, CCS also requires a higher price of CO2 to be economically viable, commented  Maria Velkova,  in charge of finance for low-carbon innovation at the European Commission. “But the question is how much CCS do we need,” she cautioned, saying the initial enthusiasm around CCS had been dampened by rapidly falling costs of renewable energies and energy saving technologies.

Last year four CCS projects were included in the DG Energy latest list of Projects of Common Interest (PCI):