Gasworld magazine has published an interview with Dr. Nils Røkke, Chairman of the Board of the European Energy Research Alliance and SINTEF’s Executive Vice-President of Sustainability, in which he gives his views on the future of technologies to reduce carbon emissions. Observing the various targets of European countries to bring carbon emissions down – the UK to net zero by 2050, Finland by 2035, Denmark a reduction of 70% by 2030, and others – Dr Røkke points out that CCS will be “mandatory” to meet those targets. In addition, he says that it “is safe to claim that without the hydrogen economy it will be near impossible to reach the Paris Agreement targets of towards 1.5 degree warming.” In his native Norway, the national government is current conducting a front end engineering and design study to inform a decision regarding whether to proceed with a full chain project – two capture plants (one at a cement plant and a waste-to-energy plant), plus shipping and storage – which if it were to go ahead would have significant impacts Europe- and world-wide. He also suggested that more research and development needs to go into negative emissions technologies, and that this could be coordinated by Mission Innovation, the initiative between 24 countries to double clean energy research efforts. Yet more effort is required, in Dr Røkke’s opinion. In his words, it’s “strange to me that we don’t have a more forceful research and innovation agenda for these technologies which are going to be needed to become climate neutral.”