The global climate risks of Asia’s expansive carbon capture and storage plans
Executive summary:
Asia, whose economies generate more than half the world's fossil fuel and greenhouse gas emissions, has a defining role in global climate action under the Paris Agreement. How fast the region’s economies cut emissions – and reduce them to zero – will have a huge impact on whether peak global warming can be limited to 1.5°C or close to it, with a limited period of overshoot, before returning below 1.5°C before the end of the century.
This report considers the climate and economic implications of Asia’s promotion of carbon capture and storage (CCS) to reduce fossil fuel emissions.
We assess current and prospective future CCS deployment in Asia, looking at some of its largest and/or most influential economies, energy users, and emitters: China, India, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore, as well as Australia (which has strong integration with Asian fossil fuel trade and CCS plans).
We find that if Asian countries were to follow a high-CCS pathway, it could lead to additional cumulative GHG emissions of almost 25 billion tonnes of CO2-equivalent by 2050. About 22 Gt of the total would be CO2, and the remainder would be methane.
This is more than the cumulative fossil fuel CO2 emissions individually generated by all but three Asian countries (China, India, and Japan) over all time. These additional emissions would fatally undermine Asia’s alignment with the Paris Agreement.
The additional emissions would result from CCS not capturing close to all emissions when applied to fossil fuels, as is required under 1.5˚C aligned ‘high-CCS’ scenarios. We instead consider that CCS will continue to operate in line with observations to date, which would likely fail to meet Asian performance expectations by a wide margin.
CCS has had a poor track record so far: it has failed to achieve anywhere near industry claims, often capturing 50% of emissions at best, or considerably less. A large proportion of captured emissions are used to extract more fossil fuels. Contrary to many proposed Asian uses, CCS also carries higher costs than alternative zero emission solutions, led by renewables, storage, and electrification.
But CCS being deployed and failing to adequately capture CO2 is not the only climate risk Asia faces. Cost and technical challenges have meant past promises of expansive CCS deployment have not been realised. If this continues to be the case in Asia, it would come at the cost of diverting capital, time, and other resources from zero emission solutions. It would keep unabated fossil fuels in energy mixes far longer than needed.
Deployed CCS capacity in Asia is, indeed, very likely to remain low for the remainder of this decade. But regional governments and industry, led by the countries we focus on The global climate risks of Asia’s expansive carbon capture and storage plans 3 are increasingly presenting CCS as a frontline mitigation strategy across numerous sectors. Projects and plans more often seek to continue and even expand fossil fuel use, than to meet the Paris goals. Governments continue to subsidise and support fossil fuel companies pursuing CCS, despite its consistent historic failure to deliver results.
No 1.5˚C-aligned high-CCS scenario sees fossil fuel use remain at current or expanded levels. But Asian countries are setting targets and supporting projects that promote deployment at rates, and in use cases, that go beyond the least risk CCS role, as a last resort mitigation solution, where all other options have been exhausted. Project plans will either directly facilitate fossil fuel expansion or come at the expense of viable options to cost-effectively eliminate CO2 emissions at-source.
CCS also creates huge economic risks
Asian countries promote CCS for largely economic reasons. Japan and South provide considerable support to CCS at home and abroad and seek to lead related technology markets. They continue to build up fossil fuel infrastructure, particularly for gas and LNG, in parallel. Australia and Southeast Asian countries are promoting themselves as CO2 storage and transit hubs, likely extending the life of fossil fuel production (while potentially failing to ensure safe long-term storage). Leading regional emitters China and India have less clear CCS plans. China already has a strong CCS presence, but it is also the most advanced country in deploying zero emissions technologies. If China or India turn more decisively to future CCS dependence, it could have disastrous climate results.
However, high-CCS plans pose economic risks in addition to climate risks. CCS in the power sector is estimated capable of doubling the cost of power relative to renewables backed by storage. Non-CCS climate solutions are also increasingly available in so-called ‘hard-to-abate’ sectors. Plans for fossil energy and industrial installations with CCS – and even unabated fossil installations – are increasingly uncompetitive with viable options for eliminating emissions at-source, led by renewables and electrification.
Many Asian countries are moving towards some combination of an ‘underperforming high-CCS’ and ‘unachieved high-CCS’ pathway. Paris-aligned climate action dictates that they should avoid CCS as anything but a last resort abatement technology. This means avoiding proposed use in sectors, such as power and transportation, which already have low-cost, near-term emissions abatement options. Equally, there are increasing solutions for hard-to-abate sectors that do not require CCS. Despite what governments and fossil fuel interests claim, pursuit of a ‘deliberate lowCCS’ pathway – which would logically promote deployment of low cost and zero emissions renewables and electrification technologies – represents Asia’s most effective and economically competitive option for aligning with the Paris Agreement.
