Links between Energy Usage and Climate:Implications on Increasing CO 2 Emissions and Carbon Capture and Storage

Global climate change due to increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere resulting from persistent use of fossil fuels over the past century is one of the major challenges of the contemporary industrial world. The exploitation of natural resources including fossil fuels has not always been done in a sustainable way. One of its adverse effects, faced by our generation, is climate change. We must not only be alert to these changes, but also make necessary efforts to adopt scientific measures to combat their ill effects. The combustion of fossil fuels together with added emissions from cement production, and land use change result in net annual increase in CO₂ in the atmosphere by 4 GtC. Scientists have clearly demonstrated the role of CO₂ emission in global warming. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is an advanced technology to capture CO₂ from its source, isolate it from the atmosphere and store it typically in underground geological formations. We highlight the need to invest in obtaining cleaner energy from fossil fuels by implementing technologies like CCS along with technological advancements in renewables. We present here a review on the general debate around implementing CCS technology and dwell on some developments in India to understand if CCS will be effective in the future towards reducing the carbon footprint in our growing economy.