CCUS as a cornerstone of Europe’s decarbonization

Carbon capture utilisation and storage (CCUS) is key for Europe’s decarbonisation strategy toward 2050 and beyond. 

Alongside renewable energy, and greater energy efficiency, this technology is essential to capture the hard-to-abate emissions that remain, especially from industrial processes. Moreover, carbon capture will be a pre-requisite to retaining a decarbonised and competitive industrial base in the EU. In the coming years, most captured CO2 is expected to be permanently stored in geological formations. However, CO2 utilisation is also set to play an important role, supported by the availability of biogenic CO2.

The momentum for CCUS is gaining ground worldwide, including in the EU.

We have seen sustained commitment from many EU Member States, who are building financing schemes and advancing legislation to facilitate and structure the deployment of CCUS. We are also working closely with our partners: last year, for example, we celebrated the start of operations at Northern Lights in Norway, which marked the first volumes of CO2 successfully captured and geologically stored at industrial scale in Europe. In addition, we support and welcome the continued progress in the construction of key European projects, such as Porthos in the Netherlands and Greensand in Denmark, which will be the first large scale geological CO2 storage infrastructures in the EU.

All these successful developments are great examples of how the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) and the Innovation Fund support projects, transforming vision into reality. 

Stimulating the deployment of the CO2 value chain across the European Union is a clear priority for the Commission.

At the end of last year, the Commission published the second list of Projects of Common and Mutual Interest[1], which includes 4 new CO2 transport infrastructure projects. This comes in addition to the 13 existing projects that continue to benefit from this status and have received a total of EUR 978 million in EU co-funding through the CEF in recent years.

In addition, the Commission has announced in November 2025 the allocation from the Innovation Fund of specific support to large and small-scale CCS projects, as well as CCU projects. The Innovation Fund already supports CO2 capture projects representing 23 million tonnes per annum of targeted capacity by 2030 or shortly thereafter. It also provides direct financial support to CO2 storage projects representing nearly 12 million tonnes per annum of additional CO2 injection capacity.

The potential deployment of CCUS solutions is large. Heavy-emitting industries are actively developing decarbonization strategies, with industrial carbon management playing a crucial role. At the same time, the number of projects currently under development remains insufficient to meet Europe’s climate targets, making urgent action necessary to scale up CCUS technologies.

The Industrial Carbon Management Strategy adopted by the Commission in 2024 identifies the key obstacles and outlines where stronger efforts from both the Commission and Member States are required to remove existing barriers.

It sends a clear signal to the market and to investors about the role that CCUS must play on the path to climate neutrality by 2050.

First, to kick-start this emerging market, we need to de-risk investments. Second, market and regulatory fragmentation across Member States create uncertainty for project promoters and risk leading to unequal access to CO2 infrastructure. Third, the lack of visibility on available CO2 storage facilities and the volume of CO2 captured by emitters lead to significant risks for project promoters, making it difficult to plan investments and infrastructure development.

To address these challenges, the Commission is moving ahead with the preparations for a legislative proposal scheduled for this year, to establish a well-functioning internal market and infrastructure for CO2. With this upcoming legislative framework, we are looking into how to overcome the barriers for cross-border CO2 transportation, tackling insufficient cross-border operability and other remaining legal barriers or uncertainties.

We also want to support the emergence of a competitive CO2 value chain, for instance with rules on access to infrastructure and on how to avoid conflict of interest but also by looking into how to overcome coordination issues in the value chain.

The Commission is committed to developing framework that lays the grounds, that is robust and of course avoiding measures that could negatively impact business cases or investment decisions.

In addition to this legislative effort, the EU Emissions Trading System^[2] will continue to provide a key incentive to scale up industrial carbon management projects, by removing the surrender obligation on operators who capture and permanently store CO2. Achieving our climate targets will also require us to keep adapting our comprehensive policy framework.

To reach our objectives, full cooperation among Member States, stakeholders, and international partners will be essential. In support of this cooperation, the latest edition of the Industrial Carbon Management Forum—a major platform established by the Commission to facilitate exchanges on CO2 project deployment in Europe—brought together more than 420 participants in Athens in December last year.

In conclusion, if we are to stay on course with our climate ambitions while ensuring our industries and economy remain competitive on the global stage, urgent action is required to scale up all decarbonisation technologies, in parallel to our push for more renewable energy and greater energy efficiency. The Commission is therefore firmly committed to the deployment of CCUS in Europe and to capturing the full potential of carbon capture technologies for our future.

[1] Regulation (EU) 2022/869.

[2] Directive (EU) 2023/959.