The contribution of CCUS to clean energy transitions will undoubtedly vary considerably across countries and regions. When, how and where CCUS is applied will depend on a number of considerations, including the size and age of existing power and industrial plants, domestic energy resources (both fossil and renewable), the cost and availability of alternative low-carbon technologies, the availability and proximity of CO₂ storage resources to emissions sources, and public acceptance of CCUS. The level of climate ambition and the strength of associated policy measures will also be critical factors in determining the role CCUS plays in each country.

CCUS contributes to emissions reductions in all regions in the Sustainable Development Scenario. In absolute terms, its contribution is largest in China, accounting for around one-quarter of all the CO₂ captured cumulatively to 2070 worldwide. In the period to 2030, China makes up around half of the increase in CO₂ capture worldwide, primarily through retrofits to recently built coal-fired power plants and industrial plants. Europe and North America also see a significant increase in deployment of CCUS, accounting for 11% of the increase to 2030 and 21% to 2070.

Other regions account for a growing share of CO₂ capture over the projection period in the Sustainable Development Scenario. In the Middle East, demand for CO₂ for EOR is a key driver in the near term, alongside measures to decarbonise the refining and petrochemical sectors. Increased electricity demand also stimulates uptake of natural gas with CCUS in the power sector in some Middle Eastern countries. There are currently two large-scale CCUS facilities operating in the Middle East (in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates), linked to natural gas processing and steel production, with the CO₂ used for EOR. The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) has also announced a target of capturing 5 MtCO₂/year from its natural gas processing plants by 2030 (ADNOC, 2020).

CCUS also emerges as an important emissions abatement option across other parts of Asia, including India and Southeast Asia, after 2030. Emerging economies in Asia have relatively new coal-fired power stations and factories, which are unlikely to be retired early in view of economic and social development priorities. India, where there are no large-scale CCUS projects at present, sees deployment of CCUS in power and industry in the long term on the assumption that sufficient storage capacity or CO₂ use opportunities can be developed.

The projected deployment of bioenergy and DAC (for both CO₂ use and dedicated storage) is driven in large part by the availability of bioenergy and land resources for the former, and cheap low-carbon electricity or heat for the latter. In the short term, they are deployed primarily in China, North America and the Middle East, with those regions together accounting for almost 70% of total capture worldwide in 2030. China sees the fastest growth in deployment in the longer term, capturing over 600 MtCO₂ from biomass in 2070 – one-fifth of the 3 Gt captured globally. The Middle East sees the biggest increase in DAC capacity, reaching over 60 Mt in 2050 and around 275 Mt in 2070 – about a quarter of the global total.

The rest of this chapter focuses on opportunities for deploying CCUS in the United States – the leading country for CCUS today – Europe and China. These regions together account for around two-thirds of CCUS in operation today (by CO₂ capture capacity) and almost 90% of capacity under construction or planned. The analysis examines the potential for CCUS to tackle emissions from existing emissions-intensive plants as well as opportunities to promote the development of industrial CCUS hubs. Geographic information system (GIS) mapping – a framework for gathering, managing and analysing spatial location data – is used to identify the proximity of existing power and industrial facilities to potential geological storage sites, based on transport distances of 50 km and 100 km.1

CCUS today and in the Sustainable Development Scenario

The United States is the global leader in CCUS development and deployment, with ten commercial CCUS facilities, some dating back to the 1970s and 1980s. These facilities have a total CO₂ capture capacity of around 25 Mt/year – close to two-thirds of global capacity. Another facility in construction has a capture capacity of 1.5 Mt/year of CO₂, and there are at least another 18-20 planned projects that would add around 46 Mt/year were they all to come to fruition. Most existing CCUS projects in the United States are associated with low-cost capture opportunities, including natural gas processing (where capture is required to meet gas quality specifications) and the production of synthetic natural gas, fertiliser, hydrogen and bioethanol. One project – Petra Nova – captures CO₂ from a retrofitted coal-fired power plant for use in EOR though operations were suspended recently due to low oil prices. All but one of the ten existing projects earn revenues from the sale of the captured CO₂ for EOR operations. There are also numerous pilot- and demonstration-scale projects in operation as well as significant CCUS R&D activity, including through the Department of Energy’s National Laboratories.

CCUS deployment in the United States accelerates over the projection horizon in the Sustainable Development Scenario. Capture reaches around 1 200 MtCO₂ by 2070 in that scenario, of which more than 95% is permanently stored. Most capture facilities are in fuel transformation and the power sector, including gas-fired power generation. The share of CCUS in the technologies and measures that contribute to reducing CO₂ emissions relative to the Stated Policies Scenario increases over the period to 2070, as lower-cost mitigation options are exhausted and as DACS and BECCS are needed to produce negative emissions to compensate for residual emissions in hard-to-abate sectors.

Tackling emissions from existing plants

Industry and fuel transformation together with power and heat plants in the United States emitted around 2.6 GtCO₂ in 2019 – more than half of the country’s total energy sector CO₂ emissions of 5 Gt and over 7% of global emissions. Over a third of US emissions come from power generation, two-thirds of which are from coal-fired power plants and the remainder largely from gas-fired plants. CO₂ emissions from the chemicals (180 Mt), cement (60 Mt), and iron and steel (75 Mt) sectors are responsible for around 55% of overall US industry emissions. Emissions come from some 2 150 plants of various sizes, but just 200 of them accounted for more than half of total power and industrial emissions. Power stations and industrial sites are widely distributed, but are clustered in Appalachia, the Gulf Coast, parts of California and along the East Coast.

Existing power and industrial plants in the United States would emit more than 40 GtCO₂ between now and 2070 if operated under normal conditions – unless they are retrofitted with CCUS or are retired early (see Chapter 2 for a discussion of existing infrastructure). Despite the advanced age of the fleet of coal-fired power plants, which averages around 40 years, their cumulative emissions would still be around 16 Gt if they ran to the end of their technical lives. Gas-fired power plants average 22 years in age and would emit 12 Gt. Cumulative locked-in emissions from existing industrial facilities amount to 14 Gt, of which nearly 4 Gt is in the chemicals sector with a young fleet of plants averaging only about 10 years (methanol plants have an average of just 5 years). While CCUS retrofits may be an attractive low-cost solution for some of the younger assets in the United States, they may not be for some older plants.

Potential CO₂ storage capacity in the United States is estimated at around 800 Gt – equal to around 160 years of domestic emissions from all sources (see Chapter 3). The availability and likely cost of developing storage sites vary considerably across the country.2 Around two-thirds of this capacity (550 Gt) is onshore, mostly in saline formations. The Gulf Coast region, home to many large sources of emissions, has the most capacity, followed by Wyoming, Colorado and Montana.

The majority of CO₂ sources in the United States are located close to potential CO₂ storage sites. Around 80% of industrial facilities and power plants, accounting for 85% of emissions, are located within 100 km of a potential storage site and 75% of plants (80% of emissions) within 50 km (Figure 4.4). To put these distances into context, the average distance over which CO₂ is currently transported by pipeline between existing CCUS facilities is around 180 km and the maximum around 375 km (from the Lost Cabin Gas Plant). The United States has the world’s largest CO₂ pipeline network (8 000 km), which can provide a basis for developing new capacity to link emissions point sources to dedicated CO₂ storage and EOR sites in the future.3

Near-term opportunities for CCUS

Near-term opportunities for new CCUS facilities in the United States are mainly located in highly industrialised areas where emissions sources are concentrated, CO₂ storage is available and CO₂ is needed for EOR. The 45Q tax credit and California LCFS have improved the investment environment and have already spurred a number of project announcements.

The Gulf Coast and Texas offer opportunities for near-term CCUS deployment: the Denver City hub cluster in Texas has the largest CO₂ pipeline infrastructure in the world and connects CO₂ sources to EOR sites. The Gulf Coast hub emits around 200 MtCO₂ per year, of which around 35 Mt is from highly concentred streams (OGCI, 2019). Another major emission hub is the Rocky Mountain cluster (IEAGHG, 2015). The US Department of Energy has supported a number of front-end engineering design studies for carbon capture.4 The CarbonSAFE Initiative focuses on the development of geologic storage sites for the storage of more than 50 Mt from industrial sources. These projects could represent potential anchor projects for regional hubs.

CCUS today and in the Sustainable Development Scenario

There are two large-scale CCUS projects operating in Europe at present – Sleipner and Snøhvit, both located in Norway and both capturing CO₂ from natural gas processing and reinjecting it into dedicated storage sites. Their combined capacity is 1.7 Mt/year. A number of small pilot and demonstration projects are operating elsewhere in Europe. These include the CarbFix project in Iceland (capturing CO₂ from geothermal fluid and air and storing it in basalts formations), the Drax CCS pilot project in the United Kingdom (currently pilot-testing capture from biomass-based power generation), the STEPWISE Project in Sweden (testing sorption-enhanced water gas shift separation in the iron and steel sector), the CIUDEN project in Spain (focusing mainly on storage technologies) and a geothermal plant with CCS in Croatia (generating electricity from geothermal hot brine).

CO₂ capture is projected to rise to around 35 Mt in 2030, 350 Mt in 2050 and more than 700 Mt in 2070 in Europe in the Sustainable Development Scenario. Cumulatively in the time horizon 2019‑70, power generation is the main contributor (42%), followed by industry (31%) and fuel refining (26%). Up to 2050, most of the CO₂ captured is associated with the use of fossil fuels. After 2050 BECCS and DAC play a more prominent role, together accounting for almost 330 MtCO₂ captured in 2070, compared with almost 380 Mt from fossil fuels. Two-thirds of CO₂ captured from power generation in 2070 is associated with BECCS. 

Tackling emissions from existing plants

Energy sector CO₂ emissions totalled 3.9 Gt in Europe in 2019. The power sector was the main source (32%), followed by the transport sector (25%), manufacturing industries (20%), and buildings and agriculture (18%). Industry emissions of around 800 MtCO₂ came largely from energy-intensive industries, including iron and steel (26%), cement (19%) and chemicals (18%). Around 32% of the emissions from these three sectors were from industrial processes rather than fuel combustion.

Many of the plants responsible for CO₂ emissions could be operating for decades to come. For instance, the average age of a European fossil-based power plant is 28 years (33 for coal-fired plants and 17 for natural gas plants) against an average technical lifetime of around 50 years. Those plants and others under construction or planned could emit cumulatively more than 25 Gt between 2019 and 2070 unless they are retrofitted with CCUS or retired early. For industrial plants, the average lifetime is around 25 years, while the average age in Europe depends on the subsector: 15 years for chemical and cement plants, around 12 for blast furnaces, and 17 for DRI production. The cumulative emissions from these plants could amount to 10 Gt over the next 30 years or so.

The bulk of Europe’s energy sector emissions are from sources located in relatively close proximity to potential storage sites. This report calculates that around 68% of all the emissions from power plants and factories in Europe are located within 100 km of potential storage.5 This includes 54% of emissions from iron and steel plants, 56% of emissions from refineries, 52% from cement, 72% from power, and 79% from chemical plants. However, much of the European storage capacity – around 160 Gt – is onshore, where storage projects are likely to face public opposition; offshore storage – roughly 140 Gt – is expected to be more feasible, particularly in the near term. An estimated 19% of industrial plants in Europe are located within 100 km of a suitable offshore storage site, with oil refineries accounting for 25% of these emissions, followed by chemical plants (20%), power plants (19%), iron and steel plants (17%) and cement plants (10%).

Many of these plants are found in industrial hubs, notably in Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

In Germany, North Rhine-Westphalia produces around a quarter of Germany’s electricity (WIRTSCHAFT.NRW, 2020), hosting as well a large number of manufacturing industries, while the Ruhr region, a very large industrial cluster, includes Europe’s largest steel production complex alongside cement industries, refineries and several waste-to-energy facilities (Bellona, 2016).

The two main industrial hubs in France are located in close proximity of the coasts. They are in the south at Fos-Berre/Marseille, with a number of emissions-intensive areas between 2.5 Mt and 17.7 MtCO₂/year (IEAGHG, 2015), and in the west at Le Havre, where assessments have been made on the feasibility of a shared transport and storage system, with captured CO₂ coming from around 13 facilities (Decarre, 2012).

In Belgium, geological storage options are limited, therefore transportation links to nearby collection hubs are required to ensure the deep decarbonisation of the Antwerp region (Bellona, 2016).

In Scandinavia, the Skagerrak/Kattegat region, which lies between southern Norway, Sweden and northern Denmark, includes several industrial and energy-related smaller clusters (IEAGHG, 2015), with potential capture estimated to be equivalent to 14 MtCO₂ per year (Tel-tek, 2012).

In the United Kingdom, there are a number of industrial clusters with the Humber region the most carbon-intensive (12.4 MtCO₂ emitted per year), including more than 100 chemical and refining plants and a number of manufacturing facilities and power stations (Zero Carbon Humber, 2019).

Most of Europe’s potential offshore CO₂ storage capacity is located in the North Sea, where there are a number of depleted oil and gas fields and saline aquifers that could provide suitable storage. These sites are in close proximity to a number of industrial clusters in Belgium, Denmark, Netherlands, Norway, United Kingdom and Sweden. The Utsira formation (an offshore saline formation) in Norway is considered the largest potential sink for CO₂ in Europe, with a storage capacity up to 16 GtCO₂ (The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate, 2020a, 2020b). Other Norwegian offshore saline aquifers and depleted oil and gas fields might be able store as much as 40 Gt. As in Norway, CO₂ storage capacity in the United Kingdom (around 78 Gt) is mostly located offshore, including in deep saline formations and depleted oil and gas fields (The ETI, 2016). Germany has an estimated storage capacity of around 20 Gt, mainly offshore in the North Sea. Onshore CO₂ storage in Germany, which is currently prohibited, has faced considerable public opposition in the past. Storage capacity in the Netherlands is estimated at between 2.7 Gt and 3.2 Gt (mostly onshore, with only 1.2 Gt offshore), most of it in depleted gas fields (Noordzeeloket UK, 2020). 

Near-term opportunities for CCUS

The investment environment for CCUS in Europe has been improving, in particular due to the adoption of more ambitious climate goals and increased policy support for clean energy technologies. The European Commission has set a net-zero emissions target within its 2050 long-term climate strategy, which is part of the recently announced European Green Deal – a set of policy initiatives drawn by the Commission to achieve that target. The United Kingdom has also adopted a goal of net-zero emissions by 2050, following the advice of the Committee on Climate Change. The committee suggested a number of decarbonisation options, including resource and energy efficiency, extensive electrification, development of a hydrogen economy, and CCUS (Committee on Climate Change, 2019). The European Commission and also a number of European countries (including Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands) have included hydrogen in their long-term decarbonisation strategies and roadmaps (IEA, 2019).

Recent policy measures include the EU Innovation Fund, which makes available up to EUR 10 billion (USD 11.9 billion) to support the demonstration of low-carbon innovative technologies, and the EU Horizon 2020 (EUR 70.2 billion/ USD 83 billion) dedicated to research and innovation covering a number of topics including energy system decarbonisation. National policies include the Dutch SDE++ programme – an operating grant intended to support the deployment of sustainable energy and CO₂ reducing technologies and practices – and CCUS funding in the United Kingdom. The UK government announced the establishment of a CCS Infrastructure Fund of at least GBP 800 million (USD 1 billion) to support CCUS in at least two sites, one by 2025 and one by 2030 (UK Government, 2020).

This improved investment environment has contributed to a growing number of CCUS projects under development in Europe, including several targeting industrial hubs:

Porthos, the Netherlands: The Port of Rotterdam currently emits around 28 MtCO₂ per year (OGCI, 2019). Within the Porthos Project, the Port of Rotterdam Authority and two state-owned energy companies, Gasunie and EBN, have joined forces to develop CO₂ storage of 2 Mt to 5 Mt per year below the North Sea. The storage capacity could be increased to up to 10 Mt/year or more, enabling the site to store CO₂ coming from other European countries (OGCI, 2019; Rotterdam CCUS, 2020).

Longship CCS project, Norway: This project consists of two CO₂ capture facilities and a CO₂ transport and storage hub. Fortum Oslo Varme (waste-to-energy) and Norcem (cement production) are planning to build CO₂ capture facilities at their plants, delivering the gas to the Northern Lights consortium (Equinor, Shell and Total), which will handle the transport and permanent storage of the CO₂ in the North Sea. Although this project does not focus on an existing industrial hub (it is currently planning to capture 0.8 Mt per year), it has the potential to increase the transport and storage capacity up to 5 Mt/year (total storage capacity around 100 Mt) and provide a storage solution for industrial facilities around Europe6 (Northern Lights, 2019). 

Zero Carbon Humber, United Kingdom: This project is currently aiming to convert the gas grid in the Humber region to hydrogen, while capturing CO₂ from the hydrogen facility and also from a number of emissions sources (including a proposed BECCS project from Drax) and storing it offshore in the North Sea (initial capture capacity equivalent to 10 MtCO₂/year).

Net Zero Teesside, United Kingdom: This project is an integrated CCUS project aiming to store up to 6 Mt/year of CO₂ from a number of energy-intensive industries located in Teesside. The region is home to five of the United Kingdom’s top 25 CO₂ emitters and accounts for 5.6% of total UK industrial emissions. The storage site, with capacity of at least 1 Gt, would be located offshore in the North Sea (Net Zero Teesside, 2019).

Ervia Cork, Ireland: The aim of this project is to reduce CO₂ emissions from the electricity, heating, industry, agriculture and transport sectors in Ireland (Ervia, 2020). It will initially capture 2.5 MtCO₂ from two combined-cycle gas turbine power plants (440 MW each) and one oil refinery (with a capacity of 75 000 bbl per day).

In addition to the above, a number of projects in the United Kingdom are developing CCUS infrastructure for low-carbon hydrogen production. This includes H21 North of England, which aims to decarbonise homes and business (Northern Gas Networks, 2018), and HyNet, an integrated low-carbon hydrogen production, distribution and CCUS project (HyNet, 2020).

Several of the proposed offshore CO₂ storage projects in Europe are planning to use shipping rather than pipelines as the primary form of transport. This could provide valuable flexibility in linking storage to sources of CO₂ and reduce initial integration risks. A major legal barrier to the development of CCUS hubs in Europe and elsewhere was resolved in 2019, with Norway and the Netherlands securing Provisional Application of the CCS export amendment to the London Protocol.

CCUS today and in the Sustainable Development Scenario

There is one large-scale CCUS project currently operating in China – the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) Jilin project, which captures some 600 ktCO₂ per year from a natural gas processing plant for transportation via a 50 km pipeline to an oil reservoir for EOR (GCCSI, 2020). Two other large-scale projects are under construction, both of which involve capturing around 400 kt/year of CO₂ from chemicals production facilities and transporting it over 75-150 km for use in EOR. Several smaller capture and storage demonstration projects, mainly related to coal-fired power plants and chemical facilities, have operated successfully over the last decade. China’s interest in CCUS is reflected in government documents highlighting the importance of the technology for the country’s decarbonisation strategy.

CCUS capacity is projected to grow rapidly in China, seeing the largest increase of any country or region through to 2070, in the Sustainable Development Scenario. By 2030, the amount of CO₂ captured reaches 0.4 Gt, or around half of the global total, and more than 2 Gt in 2070. CO₂ capture is applied mainly to coal-fired power plants, followed by chemicals, cement, and iron and steel production facilities. These sectors together make up the vast majority of the CO₂ captured in both 2030 and 2050. The role of BECCS and DAC becomes more important over time, accounting for one-third of the CO₂ captured in 2070.

China’s energy sector CO₂ emissions totalled 11.1 Gt in 2019 – close to one-third of the world total. Coal-fired power generation was responsible for 45% of Chinese emissions, followed by iron and steel (12%), cement (11%), chemicals (5%), and oil refineries (2%).

The majority of CO₂ sources are concentrated along the coast. In recent years, the government has started relocating some coal-fired power plants and energy-intensive industry (cement, iron and steel, and refineries) to neighbouring provinces to reduce air pollution in major population centres, such as the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Circle and Yangtze River Delta Region.

The young average age of the coal-fired power and industrial assets presents a risk of CO₂ emissions being locked in for decades to come. Unlike in Europe and the United States, most of the investment in those assets occurred over the past two decades when China’s economy grew most rapidly. Nearly half of the global coal-fired power capacity of 2 100 GW in operation today is in China, where the average age of coal-fired power stations is less than 13 years. Of the currently installed capacity in China, around 900 GW could still be operating in 2050. The country also hosts close to 60% of global capacity to make primary steel, just over half the world’s kiln capacity in cement production and 30% of total production capacity for ammonia, methanol and high-value chemicals. The majority of this industrial capacity is at the younger end of the global age range in each asset class, averaging between 10 and 15 years. The potential cumulative emission lock-in to 2070 amounts to nearly 180 Gt for power stations and around 90 Gt for industry. CCUS can help avoid a large share of these emissions while minimising the cost of early retirement of power and industrial assets.

As in other countries, the competitiveness of CCUS in China as a mitigation option is specific to each sector and location. The economic viability of power and industrial plants with CCUS depends on several factors, including the plant’s age and layout, raw material and energy prices, proximity to CO₂ storage resources or large-scale opportunities for making use of the CO₂ (including EOR), and competing low-carbon technologies. In regions with favourable solar and wind resources, renewable electricity generation coupled with electrolytic hydrogen production may be cheaper than power plants retrofitted with CCUS. For example, compared with coal-fired power generation with CCUS, wind power currently has a cost advantage in 16 out of the country’s 23 provinces, while solar PV is cheaper in the central province Qinghai and the southern island Hainan (Fan et al., 2019). Planned high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission lines would enable huge amounts of renewables-based electricity to flow from resource-rich inland provinces to population centres near the coast.

China has large theoretical geological storage capacity in excess of 325 GtCO₂ in onshore basins and 100 Gt in offshore basins (Kearns et al., 2017). Most of the onshore sedimentary formations are located in the northern, western and central-eastern parts of the country, while offshore basins are available along most of the coastal area. In its 2019 CCUS roadmap, the Chinese government expressed interest in exploiting early opportunities associated with CO₂-EOR (ACCA21, 2019). Most of these opportunities are in the north-western (Xinjiang), central (Gansu, Ningxia, Shaanxi) and north-eastern areas (Heilongjiang, Jilin) (Wei et al., 2015).

A considerable share of the stationary sources of CO₂ in China are in relatively close proximity to at least one geological CO₂ storage reservoir. In China, 45% of existing power and industrial facilities (2.8 GtCO₂) have at least one storage formation within 50 km, and 65% of the sources (4.1 GtCO₂) are located within 100 km of a potential storage site. This means that all of the CO₂ captured in the period to 2070 in the Sustainable Development Scenario could come from plants that are within 50 km of a storage site based on the current location of emissions sources. Further assessments would be required to determine the suitability of potential reservoirs, their exact technical capacity and their economic feasibility. The South Central and Eastern provinces, which have high CO₂ emissions, are farthest from potential onshore CO₂ storage reservoirs. In these areas, offshore storage may be cheaper than the development of long-distance CO₂ pipeline infrastructure to inland onshore reservoirs. Offshore storage may also be the preferred option for populous areas along the coast where high land prices and public opposition could hamper the development of onshore storage resources. 

Near-term opportunities for CCUS

Prime locations for early development of CCUS hubs are centred on areas with good CO₂-EOR opportunities. The revenue stream from CO₂-EOR can help support investment in CO₂ capture facilities and be a bridge towards more widespread geological storage of CO₂. CO₂-EOR can contribute to emissions reductions (see Chapter 3). Locations for CCUS hubs include those where CO₂-EOR is already in use today, in particular in the northern provinces (Xinjiang, Heilongjiang, Jilin and Shaanxi). While the CO₂ emissions density in some of these provinces is lower than in the coastal areas, supply of CO₂ is unlikely to be a constraint.

Regions with a high concentration of coal-based chemicals and hydrogen production facilities provide other near-term opportunities for CCUS. CHN Energy, China’s largest power company, is also the world's largest hydrogen production company. Its 80 coal gasifiers can produce around 8 Mt/year of hydrogen – equivalent to 12% of global dedicated hydrogen production today. Applying CCUS to this existing capacity could deliver CO₂ emissions reductions of up to 145 Mt per year, while providing a major boost to the development of both CCUS and low-carbon hydrogen. The majority of the coal-based hydrogen production facilities are located in the northern provinces of Shanxi, Shaanxi and Inner Mongolia, all of which have CO₂ storage resources in relative close proximity. In recent years, the Chinese government indicated that hydrogen energy is a vital element in China’s energy technology development strategy. Coal gasification with CCUS could be a springboard for hydrogen to fulfil its longer-term decarbonisation potential across the Chinese energy sector.

Other opportunities for CCUS hubs are in large industrial ports on the east coast. Of the ten largest ports in the world, seven are in China. The development of industrial CCUS hubs with associated infrastructure in these ports presents an attractive opportunity to reduce a significant amount of China’s CO₂ emissions.