On March 20th, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released the Synthesis Report of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6). The report integrates the main findings of the three Working Groups Assessment reports, summarising the state of knowledge of climate change, its widespread impacts and risks, and climate change mitigation and adaptation.
The report reiterates the need for crucial changes at all levels of society, including all industrial sectors, to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5° C.
The third part (WG3) of its 6th Climate Report titled “Mitigation of Climate Change”, recognises the importance of CCU as a viable solution to decrease net CO₂ emissions as well as a potential technology to move away from fossil carbon by using CO₂ as an alternative feedstock for the production of renewable chemicals and fuels.
The benefits of CCU:
🟢 CCU technologies are drop-in solutions and have the potential to utilise up to 8 Gt of CO₂ per year by 2050.
🟢 CCU allows for the reduction or avoidance of CO₂ emissions while maintaining essential services historically based on fossil resources.
🟢 CCU can provide CO₂ removal solutions when atmospheric or biogenic CO₂ is durably stored in products.
It is important to note that the impacts of CCU applications on climate change are contextual and dependent on various factors. As such, the role of CCU solutions in mitigating climate change should be determined through a comprehensive and systematic full life cycle assessment.
Our Scientific Advisory Committee has actively participated in the two-round expert review of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report to bring the dense scientific literature on CCU to the climate community.
For further information, please refer to the intervention of our colleague Célia Julia Sapart during our event “IPCC Report: The Role of Carbon Capture and Utilisation to Mitigate Climate Change,” which can be found here.
