Europe Starts Building the Backbone for Carbon Capture

EU-backed CCUS is advancing from trials toward early networks, with funding, storage planning, and new rules shaping the path to scale

16 Jan 2026

Europe’s carbon-capture debate has changed tone. The question is no longer whether the technology works. It is whether the continent can build the pipes, ports and storage sites needed to move and bury millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide in time.

A recent status report from the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre and its clean-energy observatory captures this shift. Carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) is edging out of the laboratory and into the realm of system-building. Attention is moving from experiments to execution, coordination, infrastructure and scale.

That change is visible in industry. Heidelberg Materials says four capture projects, in Belgium, France, Italy and Poland, are preparing grant agreements under the EU’s Innovation Fund. For cement, among the hardest sectors to clean up, this is significant. Carbon capture is no longer a distant option but a likely route to meeting climate rules while staying competitive.

Yet capturing carbon is the easy part. Transporting it and storing it for good remains the real constraint. Most European CO₂ pipelines and storage sites exist only on paper. Access to storage is uncertain, and without it even advanced capture plants risk sitting idle.

This helps explain the interest in the North Sea. Projects such as the INEOS-backed Greensand scheme in Danish waters are pitching themselves as early anchors of a regional storage market. Their initial capacity is small. But plans for expansion suggest a future in which emitters from several countries share offshore reservoirs, rather than each firm digging its own hole.

Industry watchers see a structural change under way. Instead of factory-by-factory solutions, Europe is inching towards shared CO₂ networks, with transport routes and storage hubs built gradually through public support and early demand.

Policymakers are encouraging this approach. The European Commission has opened a consultation on future CO₂ infrastructure and market rules, signalling that it wants an integrated system, not a jumble of disconnected projects.

Obstacles remain. Permits are slow, capital costs are high and public scepticism persists. Critics warn that carbon capture must supplement, not distract from, cuts in fossil-fuel use.

Still, momentum is unmistakable. With money flowing, storage sites advancing and rules taking shape, Europe’s carbon-capture effort is moving from experiment to industry. The hard work now lies underground.