**5. Conclusions**

An increasing supply of energy is an essential factor for economic growth and to improve living standards and quality, especially in developing countries. However, the current global energy mix, which is heavily reliant on burning fossil fuels, is responsible for the majority of GHG emissions. The search for new technologies that can reduce these emissions must be approached as a long-range policy. In the short and medium terms, due to this intense use of fossil fuels, CCS is the only technologically feasible option to mitigate GHG emissions on a large scale in a process of transition to a global energy system dominated by carbon-free sources.

The future of the CCS industry unquestionably depends on public acceptance and government support and encouragement, positively through subsidies and/or tax breaks and negatively through prohibitions on certain activities and setting of emissions limits. In this respect, public policymakers and legislators will play a defining role. Various projects whose pilot phases have been technically approved and have public and/or private funding committed are still waiting for definition of the applicable regulations so they can be scaled up. Because the implementation of a CCS project raises operating costs, there need to be general rules and public mechanisms (tax breaks, subsidies and/or carbon trading schemes) to defray these costs.
