Nicola Sturgeon is an MSP (Member of the Scottish Parliament) and former First Minister of Scotland. Ben Wilson is International Policy Lead for Stop Climate Chaos Scotland.
The world is at a crossroads. The impacts of climate change are destabilising societies, causing conflict, and deepening economic hardship. Yet, instead of rising to the challenge, too many political leaders are retreating from climate commitments, undermining a global consensus that has anchored peace and security since the Second World War.
This, then, is a moment to remind ourselves that climate action is not just about protecting the environment – it is also essential for global security. Failure to act now will drive population displacement, fuel political unrest, and create conflict.
Climate change is already driving conflicts around the world. The war in Tigray, Ethiopia, was fuelled in part by climate-induced droughts. Similarly, in Sudan, shifting migration patterns due to desertification and water scarcity have heightened ethnic and regional tensions, leading to violence and mass displacement.
These are not isolated incidents. If we don’t act now, climate disasters will fuel human insecurity on an unprecedented scale.
The economic consequences of climate inaction also pose a serious threat to peace. When communities lose their livelihoods, social unrest can follow. Economic hardship opens the door to far-right forces seeking to stoke xenophobia and racism. Governments that neglect climate action now increase the likelihood of instability in future.
“Forgotten” fragile states unite to end climate-finance blind spot
Net zero will bring economic benefits
The trend of global leaders backtracking on climate action is being driven by an increasingly sensationalist (and ill-informed) public narrative that net zero is bad for the economy. This is a falsehood now (a recent CBI report showed that the net-zero industry is an important driver of growth) and certainly wrong in the long-term. Ignoring climate action now will saddle us with significant financial and human costs in the years ahead.
As the Stern Review made clear nearly two decades ago, the economic benefits of taking decisive action on climate change far outweigh the costs of inaction. But it’s not just about economics – it’s also about justice.
The latest IPCC reports confirm that climate impacts are already driving poverty, hunger and displacement in some of the world’s most vulnerable communities. These inequalities will deepen – with consequences for all of us – unless emissions are reduced and adaptation efforts accelerated.
UK aid budget cuts threaten climate finance pledge to vulnerable nations, experts warn
The decision of the UK and many other governments to cut aid budgets to fund defence is particularly jarring. The climate finance commitments of the Paris Agreement will almost certainly be hit, further undermining the delicate balance between the Global North and the Global South. COP29 in Baku only just avoided collapse. Without a renewed commitment to climate justice this year, COP30 and the underlying premise of global cooperation on climate change will be at risk.
Loss and damage funding not a luxury
There is no doubt that climate justice demands a sharper focus on mitigating emissions and adaptation. But it needs more than that.
At COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland became the first country to commit finance to the issue of loss and damage. Loss and damage refers to payments from the Global North to the Global South to deal with the irreversible climate impacts they are already experiencing. It is an act of reparation rather than charity.
The Scottish Government’s initial commitment of £2m was modest but heralded as “breaking the taboo” on this most contentious of issues. Other countries followed and by COP28, the United Nations Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage had been established with more than US$700 million pledged.
Loss and damage fund to hand out $250 million in initial phase
In the face of pushback against action on mitigation and adaptation, and a re-emergence of climate denial in UK and global politics, many people, even climate activists, might wonder if loss and damage is now an unaffordable luxury, and question if this is the time to spend political capital, let alone hard cash, on reparations.
In our view, stepping back from loss and damage would be a serious mistake. Failure to ameliorate the irreversible impacts already being suffered will drive more conflict across the world. Moreover, if the Global North breaks its promises again, the understandable scepticism of the Global South about the efficacy of the COP process will only grow. Acting in good faith on all aspects of climate injustice is fundamental to any vision of a peaceful world.
At its core, climate action is a question of justice. The poorest countries have contributed least to the crisis and yet they bear the brunt of its impacts. This is not just a moral failure – it is also a geopolitical risk. We cannot expect the Global South to cooperate in a system that repeatedly ignores their needs and priorities. The principle of fairness is not just an ethical consideration; it is a practical necessity for sustaining peace.
Multilateralism on the line at COP30
This is why the principle of multilateralism – the foundation of the post-war global order – must be defended.
Small nations matter. The principle that Fiji and Kiribati have the same vote as the United States or Russia in climate negotiations is not a flaw – it is a cornerstone of global peace. When powerful countries sideline ‘one country, one vote’ multilateralism – as many in today’s geopolitical wrangling are doing – they signal that might makes right, an approach that make conflict more, not less, likely.
In short, the retreat from strong, multilateral climate action is not just an environmental failure – it is a security risk. Leaders who defund climate finance in favour of military spending are not making the world safer; they are creating the conditions for future conflicts.
COP30 chief calls for global unity on climate action as cooperation falters
At COP30 in Brazil, the future of global cooperation on climate change – indeed of the UN process itself – is on the line. Leaders of goodwill across the world must recognise that climate justice, whether on mitigation, adaptation, or loss and damage, is an essential ingredient for a peaceful world. Pandering to strong-man egos will only deepen injustice and increase global instability.
For the sake of future generations, this one’s leaders must stand up for justice. They must be willing to see beyond today’s headlines and secure a future built on the common good. 2025 might feel like the start of a road toward global conflict and climate breakdown, but it doesn’t need to be.
With political will, COP30 can be a bounce-back moment when the norms and values necessary for peace are reinforced. The imperative of bequeathing a healthy and peaceful planet to those who come after us demands that it be so.
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When carbon dioxide (CO2) is released from a factory or power plant, the gas can be captured and permanently stored underground, preventing it from driving climate change.
This is the idea underpinning carbon capture and storage (CCS), a technology that is at the heart of many nations’ net-zero plans.
Influential organisations, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), describe CCS as “critical” for cutting emissions from key sectors – and for helping to avoid dangerous global warming.
In particular, capturing CO2 is seen as one of the only viable options for decarbonising some of the world’s highest-emitting industries, such as cement production.
The UK, for example, has committed to investing as much as £21.7bn over the coming decades in its nascent CCS industry, as part of the nation’s net-zero strategy.
Yet, in the UK and elsewhere, there has been a backlash against plans for CCS.
Citing high costs, ties to the fossil-fuel industry and a “history of poor performance”, critics describe CCS as a “dangerous distraction” or a “false climate solution”.
Time and again, the outlook for the roll-out of CCS has been scaled back, as the technology has failed to deliver as quickly as expected – and as policy support has wavered.
Furthermore, critics state that the technology remains “unproven” on the scale required to make a meaningful impact on global emissions.
In this Q&A, Carbon Brief explores the role CCS is expected to play in achieving net-zero, its record to date and the reasons it has been criticised, using the UK as an example.
What is CCS?
CCS involves capturing CO2 emissions released from a large source, such as a gas power plant or a cement factory.
The CO2 is separated from the facility’s exhaust stream, generally using a chemical solvent, before being compressed into a liquid and transported via pipeline or vehicle. The CO2 is then stored by injecting it into underground reservoirs, such as depleted oil fields or saline aquifers.
The term “CCUS” is sometimes also used, referring to the “utilisation” of CO2 to make products, including fertilisers, fuels or building materials. Such uses do not necessarily lead to permanent emissions cuts, as the CO2 can end up later being released back into the atmosphere.
(“CCS” is used in this Q&A, unless quoting another organisation that specifically refers to “CCUS”.)
The infographic below shows the stages of capturing CO2 and transporting it to be either stored or used in other applications.
Carbon capture technology was originally rolled out at US and Canadian oil wells in the early 1970s as a way to achieve “enhanced oil recovery”. This involves injecting captured CO2 into depleted wells – a process that stores CO2, but also helps to extract more oil.
This remains, by far, the most significant end use for captured CO2 worldwide, with around three-quarters of it used for this purpose.
Moreover, most of the CO2 currently captured is a by-product of gas purification – the process by which fossil fuels such as methane are separated from other, unwanted substances. Selling this CO2 can make such gas projects more economically viable.
Therefore, as shown in the chart below, which is based on International Energy Agency (IEA) data, the majority of CO2 that is both captured and used today helps the fossil-fuel industry to extract and sell more oil and gas.
CCS was first proposed as a way to deal with CO2 emissions in a 1976 academic article, which imagined injecting the captured gas into the ocean.
It is only since the early 2000s that CCS has gained traction as a proposed climate solution, with a 2005 “special report” by the IPCC exploring the topic. At that time, the authors note there were just three small-scale projects trying to capture and permanently store CO2.
Installing CCS at factories or power plants and permanently storing the CO2 would mean that, in theory, such facilities could continue using fossil fuels without contributing to climate change.
Such applications are often mentioned alongside two related technologies, both of which could be used to “suck” CO2 out of the atmosphere and, thus, deliver “negative emissions”.
One is bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS). Crops absorb CO2 as they grow and BECCS involves a power plant burning these crops, then storing the resulting CO2.
The other technology is direct air carbon capture and storage (DACCS).
These technologies are classed as “CO2 removal”, as they involve absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere using plants or machines and then storing it permanently.
By contrast, CCS installed at a factory is considered a way to avoid CO2 emitted by that specific facility from entering the atmosphere. This Q&A focuses on such applications, which account for the vast majority of existing and planned CCS.
How much CCS capacity has been built so far?
As of February 2026, there were a total of 75 operational CCS projects around the world. As noted above, almost all of them are at fossil-fuel extraction and processing sites, according to the IEA’s database.
Together, these projects capture 62.5m tonnes of CO2 (MtCO2) each year. This is equivalent to the annual greenhouse gas emissions of Ecuador.
(This compares with the 22 CCS projects, promising to capture 40MtCO2 annually, that were operational or under construction as of 2014.)
As the chart below shows, the amount of CO2 currently being captured and stored is a tiny fraction of the total emissions from fossil-fuel use.
In a 2020 report, the IEA explained that the “story of CCUS has largely been one of unmet expectations: its potential to mitigate climate change has been recognised for decades, but deployment has been slow”.
A wave of interest in CCS in the 2000s, largely from countries in Europe and North America, focused on enabling coal power plants to continue operating with lower emissions.
This interest largely petered out, as plummeting renewable energy costs weakened the case for coal plants with CCS. Today, there are only seven operating CCS-coal plants worldwide – five in China, one in the US and one in Canada.
Yet the Paris Agreement in 2015 – and the national net-zero targets that followed – highlighted the need for deep emissions cuts in sectors that previously expected to continue emitting for decades. This, once again, has fuelled interest in the use of CCS.
In recent years, there has also been growing interest in producing low-carbon “blue” hydrogen from gas with CCS.
Hydrogen is widely seen as key for decarbonising certain sectors – particularly in industry – but analyses suggest that it may be difficult to make sufficient “green” hydrogen using renewable power on the timescales required.
As the map below shows, most CCS capacity is based in the US and Canada, with other major fossil-fuel producers such as Norway, Brazil and the Gulf states also contributing.
A surge of projects have entered the global CCS pipeline in recent years. According to the IEA, 93.7MtCO2 of capture or storage capacity is under construction as of February 2026 and another 1,279.6MtCO2 is in the “planning” stages.
“Planned” projects include any initiative at early concept, feasibility or engineering study stages and the industry has a long history of projects being cancelled or delayed.
Nevertheless, this pipeline of projects could lead to a large expansion of facilities dedicated to permanent CO2 storage that does not involve extracting more oil.
The planned projects – if they are realised – would also include significant growth in sectors where CCS is virtually non-existent, such as steel, hydrogen and cement production, as shown in the chart below.
What role is CCS expected to play in reaching net-zero?
It will be impossible to stop dangerous climate change unless the world reaches net-zero emissions, according to the IPCC. The amount of global warming – and whether the Paris Agreement temperature target can be met – depends on when net-zero is reached.
Many global pathways that have been set out for achieving net-zero, including a majority of the IPCC-assessed pathways where global warming is limited to 1.5C, rely on the use of CCS at fossil-fuel plants and industrial sites.
“These models have been quite instrumental in bringing CCS back onto the agenda,” Lina Lefstad, an ecological economist at Lund University, tells Carbon Brief.
Influential organisations relying on CCS in their net-zero scenarios range from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) through to the oil company Shell. The IEA has stated that net-zero would be “virtually impossible” without CCS.
These scenarios often include 10s to 100s of times more CCS capacity being built in the coming decades. The IEA includes 1.7GtCO2 being captured by 2035 in its net-zero scenario – nearly 30 times more than is captured today.
(Some of the much higher numbers in scenarios assessed by the IPCC have been dismissed by experts as implausible, especially given the slow rollout of CCS to date.)
When considering CCS for both emissions cuts and removals, Dr Jennifer Roberts, a researcher at the University of Strathclyde and deputy director at the UK Carbon Capture and Storage Research Centre (UKCCSRC), tells Carbon Brief the situation is clear:
“From an IPCC climate modelling perspective…reaching net-zero without CCS is far more expensive, disruptive and potentially out of reach.”
This does not mean that it would be impossible to reach net-zero without using CCS. However, net-zero scenarios that use little or no CCS rely on dramatic changes elsewhere, such as much lower global energy demand.
Net-zero scenarios often include a crucial role for CCS in “hard-to-abate” sectors, referring to activities that lack available, low-cost options to fully decarbonise. In particular, CCS is widely seen as vital for decarbonising parts of heavy industry.
The IPCC sixth assessment report (AR6) summary for policymakers calls CCS a “critical mitigation option” for some sectors, including cement and chemicals. The technical summary of the AR6 Working Group III report says that “CCS will be required to mitigate remaining CO2” in industrial sectors.
The IEA describes CCS as “virtually the only technology” that can significantly cut cement emissions, which account for around 7% of the global total. (Much of this CO2 comes from chemical processes, meaning it would still be released if the industry was electrified.)
Yet, the understanding of “hard-to-abate” emissions is changing, as alternatives to CCS become cheaper and increasingly available. As a result, CCS has become a less attractive option in some sectors, as well as being seen as less vital in some others.
Carbon Brief analysis shows that the IEA has reduced its outlook for CCS in the power sector by a third, compared to its expectations in 2021, as the chart below shows.
This reflects both slow progress in deploying CCS and rapid cost reductions in renewables, which make running gas or coal power plants less attractive.
(Even prior to this adjustment, the IEA’s net-zero scenario was already at the lower end of CCS use, compared to those assessed by the IPCC.)
This declining role for CCS in the power secto