The global capacity of carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) technologies will need to increase by at least 120 times to reach net zero by 2050, said a report by global management consulting firm McKinsey. This will require US$130 billion in investments a year until 2050, the report said. CCUS currently covers less than half a percent of annual global emissions and will need to be at least 60 times larger than present levels to deliver net zero even in a “conservative scenario”. The report acknowledged that the CCUS sector has “struggled to find its footing” over the past three decades. It added that the policy landscape for CCUS technologies is not sufficient in most markets, noting that “companies have been willing to develop plans but are hesitant to commit capital without regulatory certainty, which has led to cautious approaches to spending on project development beyond feasibility studies”. Krysta Biniek, ESG and Sustainability Expert at McKinsey, said: “For decades, the widespread adoption of CCUS has been predicted to be just around the corner, but so far it has failed to materialise. Today, however, global decarbonisation targets and growing demand for green consumer products makes rapid scaling of CCUS not only possible, but necessary.”
