1.3 billion tonnes. That is the gap between the world’s current carbon capture capacity (51 million tonnes) and what needs to be achieved by 2030 to meet climate goals. Twenty-five times more. This brutal arithmetic reveals that the technology works, but raises an unprecedented political question.
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is finally emerging from laboratories with 77 operational installations worldwide. Industrial costs have halved in five years. But this technical success masks a major economic dilemma: decarbonizing heavy industry costs 50 dollars per tonne, cleaning the atmosphere costs 500. Between these two prices lies the real climate debate of the years to come.
The Essentials
- 77 CCS installations capture 51 million tonnes of CO2 annually, representing 0.12% of global emissions
- Industrial costs have fallen to 30-50$/tonne from 60-100$/tonne in 2020
- Direct air capture remains at 300-600$/tonne despite technological progress
- Global capacity must increase 25-fold by 2030 to comply with the Paris Agreement
Heavy Industry Finally Finds Its Price
Cement plants, steel mills, and petrochemical facilities represent 30% of global emissions. For these sectors, decarbonization is impossible without capturing CO2 at the source. This technical reality has given rise to a mature industrial sector.
In the Netherlands, the Rotterdam Porthos project has been under construction since 2024 and will be operational in 2027. It will connect four industrial sites to an undersea storage network, targeting a capacity of 2.5 million tonnes of CO2 annually. In Norway, Equinor has been storing CO2 from its oil platforms since 1996 in the Utsira salt aquifer, 800 meters below the seabed.
This technological maturity explains the collapse in costs. The Global CCS Institute documents a 50% decline since 2020, from 60-100 dollars per tonne to 30-50 dollars today. Economies of scale and process optimization now allow industrial CO2 to be captured at the price of the European carbon allowance.
Direct Capture Runs Into Physics
Sucking CO2 directly from the atmosphere presents an altogether different challenge. Where a factory chimney concentrates the gas at 15-20%, ambient air contains only 0.04%. You must process 2,500 times more air for the same amount of carbon.
Climeworks, the Swiss sector leader, operates 18 direct capture installations that extract 4,000 tonnes of CO2 annually. Cost: 600 dollars per tonne. American Carbon Engineering claims 350 dollars with its liquid absorption technology. Yet even these advances leave direct capture ten times more expensive than industrial capture.
The Icelandic startup Carbfix circumvents the problem by injecting CO2 directly into basalt rock where it mineralizes in two years. This natural acceleration divides storage costs by four. But it remains limited to volcanic regions.
The International Energy Agency projects a cost decline to 100-200 dollars per tonne by 2030. Sufficient to make direct capture profitable in countries where the carbon tax exceeds this threshold. Canada is already testing this approach with a tax credit of 600 Canadian dollars per tonne captured.
Governments Arbitrate Between Efficiency and Necessity
This cost asymmetry forces governments to prioritize their climate investments. Decarbonizing electricity with solar costs 50 dollars per tonne avoided. Capturing industrial CO2 costs about the same. Cleaning the atmosphere costs ten times more. The arbitration becomes political.
The United States decided with the Inflation Reduction Act: 85 dollars in tax credit per tonne of industrial CO2 captured, 180 dollars for direct capture. This differentiation implicitly acknowledges that not all tonnes of CO2 are economically equivalent.
Europe prioritizes obligation over incentive. The Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism effectively imposes capture on non-European industries exporting to the Union. An Indian cement plant selling in Europe must prove its decarbonization efforts or pay the difference. This regulatory constraint accelerates industrial adoption without direct subsidy.
China is developing its own standards. Sinopec launched the world’s largest CCS project: 1 million tonnes annually in the Qilu basin. Announced cost: 30 dollars per tonne. This Chinese competitiveness could reshape the carbon capture landscape as it did for solar.
Climate Arithmetic Imposes Its Laws
IPCC models are unequivocal: staying at 1.5°C requires capturing 1 to 5 billion tonnes of CO2 annually by 2050. With current 51 million tonnes, the scale factor reaches 100. No energy technology has ever experienced such a surge in deployment.
This projection reveals the illusion of “all-renewable.” Even with 100% decarbonized electricity, aviation, maritime transport, steelmaking, and cement production will continue to emit. These “residual emissions” represent 15 to 20% of the global total. Capturing them becomes mathematically mandatory.
The IEA calculates the necessary investment: 3.5 trillion dollars by 2050 to deploy capture at the required scale. That is 140 billion annually, the equivalent of the European recovery plan. Current borrowing rates make this financing all the more costly as the technology itself.
The Carbon Market Reveals Its Tensions
The price of CO2 determines the economic viability of its capture. In Europe, the ETS allowance oscillates around 70 euros per tonne. In the United States, voluntary markets reach 15 dollars. This geographic fragmentation creates major distortions.
Microsoft pays 600 dollars per tonne to have CO2 removed from the atmosphere via Climeworks. This voluntary overbidding subsidizes R&D but distorts price signals. Tech companies can afford this climate luxury; heavy industry subject to international competition cannot.
The gradual merger of carbon markets could harmonize these gaps. The agreement between California and Quebec prefigures this convergence. But it risks leveling prices downward, reducing incentives for technological innovation.
“Carbon majors” are emerging as new intermediaries. Occidental Petroleum is investing 1 billion dollars in a direct capture installation in Texas. Objective: sell negative carbon credits to airlines that cannot decarbonize otherwise. This financialization of atmospheric CO2 creates a market worth 100 billion dollars by 2030.
Carbon Capture Redefines Climate Action
Beyond costs, CCS transforms climate strategy itself. It allows partial decoupling of economic growth and emissions, without awaiting complete decarbonization of industrial processes.
This temporal flexibility changes the geopolitical game. Oil-producing countries are investing massively in capture to extend the fossil fuel era. The United Arab Emirates announce 100 billion dollars in CCS investments by 2030. Saudi Arabia is developing “circular hydrocarbons”: extract oil, capture emissions, repeat.
This strategy worries climate NGOs who see it as a means to delay the energy transition. But it reassures industrialists who can decarbonize without revolutionizing their processes. Between these two visions the world’s energy future will be decided.
Carbon capture thus reveals its true stake: no longer technical but democratic. At what price does society accept cleaning the atmosphere? This question will traverse all elections in the coming decades, from Europe to the United States. The answer will determine whether climate remains stable or humanity learns to live on a warmer planet.