The just-released Emissions Gap Report, an annual publication by the UN Environment Programme, acknowledges what has been evident for quite some time now — that a breach of 1.5 degree Celsius temperature target set in the Paris Agreement is unavoidable now. Global temperatures are almost certain to rise up to at least 1.8 degree Celsius from pre-industrial times, and human efforts would need to be focused to pull it back from there to the 1.5 degree Celsius level sometime in the second half of this century.

Attempts to ensure that temperature rise does not go beyond 1.8 degree Celsius, and is then pulled back to 1.5 degree Celsius levels, cannot succeed without a significant deployment of technologies to capture, store and, if possible, utilise the carbon dioxide that is being emitted. These technologies (CCS/CCUS) are an integral part to every pathway that leads us to a climate resilient future. The net-zero pathways of countries are also dependent on these.…