What importance do you attach to CO2 capture?
What interests us at Carbon Gap is to stabilize the climate system as quickly as possible. The desirable future for us is a future in which the vast majority of greenhouse gas emissions have disappeared and where we only need a minimum of elimination (EDC) and capture (CCS) CO2. If we managed to do without it, that would be even better, but the remaining carbon budget is so small that it is no longer really possible. Today, all Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scenarios limiting global warming to 1.5°C require significant volumes of atmospheric CO2 and CCS removal.
Is this an alternative to reducing emissions?
No way. We never repeat it enough: just because we are working on one climate solution does not mean we forget all the others. We’re just expanding the portfolio. The goal remains to minimize the use of these techniques which require money, energy, time and resources to be deployed, and therefore which are not miracle solutions.
The sector is only beginning to structure itself. How to explain it?
CCS, the on-site capture of CO2 to prevent its release into the atmosphere, has seen great progress in recent years. It is a sector that has existed for a long time but which has never taken off, in particular because of the absence of incentives for manufacturers to invest. The price of carbon was very low, and emissions were even free for some, depending on the country.
What about removing CO2 from the atmosphere?
The EDC is more recent, and it is only since the IPCC’s sixth assessment report, published in 2022, that this new tool for combating climate change has become known to the general public. This sector began to take shape at the beginning of the decade, particularly in the United States. Today, it is growing, but this is threatened by the lack of political clarity on the targets to be achieved and the organization of the demand for negative emissions.
Why is the CCS progressing like this?
Political will is crucial. In Europe, the development of the Net zero industry act text, in which we participated, resulted in the proposal of the industrial carbon management strategy: Europe is starting to equip itself to develop its CO2 networks and to implement creates the conditions for industrialists to invest. The latter in fact need visibility on the profitability of these investments in the long term. In short: will these rules persist long enough for the investment to be worth it?
This visibility also depends on other links in the value chain…
Financial risk management is indeed complex: there is the industrialist who captures the CO2, the one who transports it, the one who stores it… Who will insure the entire chain? Who takes responsibility for CO2, and when? For a manufacturer of CO2 pipelines, it is a question of knowing whether Europe will create the conditions so that there are enough CCS/EDC projects and therefore CO2 in its pipes to make its investment profitable. So many questions that were examined in the working groups on the industrial carbon management strategy, to try to create schemes in which we can distribute the risk. The public authorities must also assume a part so that all this becomes viable, that we have investment decisions and that things begin to materialize.
