Abstract for:Long term effects of CO2 capture and storage: Will it help or hinder the sustainability transition?

On the short term, CO2 capture and storage (CCS) can help avoiding CO2 emissions, thereby helping mitigating climate change. However, there are several reasons to expect that the longer-term effects of large-scale CCS deployment will easily outweigh this short-term effect. On the one hand, investments in CCS can have lock-in effects, making it harder to transition to a more sustainable society. On the other hand, CCS can act as a catalyst in the sustainability transition by allowing the fossil industry to more slowly phase out their activities compared to a transition pathway without CCS, thereby lowering the fossil industry’s resistance to the transition. In this study, we systematically identify potential long-term effects of large-scale CCS by interviewing a variety of experts. We find six mechanisms that influence whether CCS will help or hinder the sustainability transition, which we present in the form of feedback loops. Our results contribute to knowledge on the conditions under which the positive effects of CCS are realized, and negative effects of CCS can be avoided.