While the World Economic Forum projected a fourfold expansion of the sector by 2030, reality on the ground tells a different story. An IEEFA review of 13 active projects revealed that most fail to meet their design capture rates of 90 percent, with several collapsing entirely. This technical fragility is compounded by financial volatility: European think tanks Agora Industry and Oeko-Institut report that storage costs are at least 50 percent higher than original forecasts, reaching up to $340 per tonne. In the U.S., integrating these systems into power plants could potentially double the cost of electricity production.

Major players like ExxonMobil, Shell, and Equinor continue to secure massive state backing, such as the United Kingdom’s $29 billion funding commitment and Germany’s $5.7 billion contract scheme. Critics, however, argue these funds subsidize the continued use of fossil fuels under the guise of "low-carbon oil." With only 50 facilities operating globally—capturing a mere fraction of total emissions—the promise of CCS as a primary decarbonization tool appears increasingly detached from its actual impact. Unless the technology proves its commercial viability beyond taxpayer-funded pilots, the industry risks being remembered as an expensive PR maneuver rather than a climate solution.