The International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook 2025 (WEO 2025) projects that carbon capture, utilisation, and storage (CCUS) technologies will deliver less than 5 per cent of total global emissions reductions needed to reach net‑zero by 2050.
The forecast marks a continuation of the IEA’s gradual downgrading of CCUS in its modelling of viable decarbonisation pathways, as renewable energy, electrification, and efficiency gains take a dominant role.
Released on 12 November 2025, the WEO sets out three global energy scenarios, including the Net Zero Emissions by 2050 (NZE) pathway.
The NZE model outlines the trajectory required to eliminate net carbon dioxide emissions within the next quarter century.
According to the IEA, the most cost‑effective emissions reduction strategies will come from broad deployment of renewable power, fuel switching, electrification, and demand‑side efficiency measures, which together account for more than 82 per cent of total abatement in the NZE framework.
CCUS, by contrast, accounts for only 4.9 per cent of emission reductions by mid‑century — 1.2 per cent from electricity generation and 3.7 per cent from industrial processes.
The IEA analysis suggests that the technology will remain expensive and technically limited, highlighting delays and cancellations in planned projects and rising cost inflation for materials and equipment.
In early editions of the World Energy Outlook, CCUS featured more prominently.
In WEO 2021, it accounted for 13 per cent of projected carbon removal and by 2025 this contribution had dropped below 5 per cent.
Economic competitiveness lies at the centre of this reassessment.
CCUS projects typically involve bespoke engineering designs, cost‑intensive materials, and complex logistics for carbon transport and permanent geological storage.
A 2025 briefing to the European Parliament by Agora Industry and the Öko‑Institut estimated complete EU CCUS disposal costs at between €105 (US$122) and €280 (US$326) per tonne of carbon dioxide.
By comparison, the average 2025 price on the EU Emissions Trading System was EUR75 per tonne — insufficient to render most capture projects commercially feasible without prolonged public subsidies or high carbon prices.
Meanwhile, renewable technologies continue to expand rapidly.
The IEA’s findings coincide with record growth in global clean energy deployment, led by China’s addition of roughly 342 gigawatts (GW) of solar capacity in 2025, an average of 950 megawatts per day.
Worldwide renewable installations reached an estimated 793 GW that year.
Countries such as Pakistan have also posted rapid, decentralised progress, importing nearly 39 GW of solar panels between 2021 and 2025 and contributing to a measurable reduction in grid electricity demand.
By 2050, solar and wind power are projected to generate 73 per cent of global electricity under the IEA’s NZE Scenario, with hydropower and nuclear each contributing about 9 per cent.
Together, these four sources would supply more than 90 per cent of the world’s electricity.
In contrast, CCUS‑equipped power plants currently provide 0.003 per cent of global electricity and are expected to remain marginal even under aggressive decarbonisation policies.
The WEO 2025 findings reinforce a structural shift in global climate strategy.
While CCUS retains niche potential for some industrial and legacy fossil assets, the IEA’s findings positions it as a supplementary measure rather than a central pillar in reaching net‑zero emissions.
