CCS is an industry buzz-acronym routinely deployed to refer to the removal of carbon dioxide from industrial processes in pursuit of climate change mitigation. But what is carbon capture and storage, and can it help us reach net zero and global temperature equilibrium?

This will be neither the first nor the last time you’ll have read the following statement: “Stopping global warming requires net greenhouse gas emissions to fall to zero and remain at zero thereafter.” You can find variations on the theme in any media with even a passing interest in climate change – from the most trivial of online newsfeeds to industry white papers and peer-reviewed academic analyses. The words quoted above are taken from a paper published by the Global CCS Institute, Technology readiness and costs of CCS.

The report’s starting point is that the traditional pillars of sustainability in the circular carbon economy – the so-called three Rs of reduce, reuse and recycle – are “not sufficient to describe a holistic...