The European Commission has finally acknowledged the absence of carbon capture and storage (CCS) in its emissions reduction strategy, but much still needs to be done, writes Chris Davies. Chris Davies is Director of CCS Europe. He was the European Parliament Rapporteur on CCS in 2008-2009 and 2013-2014. It took a long time, but the European Commission has finally acknowledged that there is a gaping hole at the heart of its climate policy. The absence of carbon capture and storage (CCS) in its emissions reduction strategy has left it without a credible means of achieving its net-zero CO2 ambitions, despite the authoritative voice of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) repeatedly insisting that the technology will be needed. However, acceptance is now replacing reluctance, goals are being set and an outline of a CCS deployment strategy is beginning to take shape. The Commission's reluctance in the past may have grown out of the perception that involvement in CCS was a career killer. It was back in January 2007 that the Commission promised to propose a mechanism to stimulate the construction and operation of up to 12 large CCS demonstration projects by 2015. Since then, not a single one has been started, let alone completed. The funding support mechanism, NER300, failed and the €1 billion made available from the 2009 economic recovery programme came up short. Environmental NGOs, which argued that CCS was simply a means to support the continued use of fossil fuels, reveled in their ridicule of the technology. Reducing CO2 emissions from coal-fired power plants was the basis of considerations in 2007. Since then, subsidies paid to support the successful development of renewable energy systems have shifted the dial, reducing (but not always eliminating) the dependence of many Member States on fossil fuels. (Chris Davies, Euractiv)