ABSTRACT
The latest assessment report (Assessment Report 5 or AR5) from Working Group III (WGIII) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) observes that despite institutional, national, and international policies aimed at mitigating anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, GHG emissions have actually grown at a rate of 2.2% per year during 2000-2010, which is faster than the rate (1.3% per year) over the entire period 1970-2000 (IPCC, 2014). The WGIII makes the additional observation that GHG emissions, approximately 76% of which are estimated to be carbon dioxide (CO2), will continue to rise in the coming decades and will have signiœcant impacts on global climate unless effective mitigation strategies are put in place. While no one mitigation strategy on its own is expected to stabilize or reduce GHG levels in the atmosphere, carbon capture and storage (CCS) has been identiœed as one of the viable technologies for accomplishing this objective (IPCC, 2005).
