(Bloomberg) -- A United Nations call to arms urging countries to spend trillions of dollars every year to avoid irreversible damage from climate change may be just the tonic for one moribund industry.

Carbon capture and storage, which siphons atmosphere-damaging pollutants from industrial smokestacks and sticks them underground permanently, has long been touted as the answer to the world’s climate woes. But exorbitant costs and lack of government support have seen little take-up globally.

Scientists convened by the UN said in their latest report that the technology has to be deployed at scale, and that “all pathways” to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) envision a role for CCS. Removing as much as 1,000 gigatons of carbon dioxide will be needed across the 21st century in order to slow global warming.

“The report provides important scientific information but deployment and financing of future CCS projects also requires strong support, political will and ambition,” said John Scowcroft, executive adviser for Europe for the Global CCS Institute, a group promoting the technology. “Long-term policy stability and finance frameworks are also needed to drive investment.”

The International Energy Agency, which advises nations on policy, agrees. It says that CCS is a critical part of the plausible scenarios for capping emissions at tolerable levels. The Paris-based agency has said that plants need to account for 14 percent of all emissions cuts by 2060 to keep global warming to just 2 degrees Celsius.

For more on the UN climate report, click here

There needs to be a 10-fold increase in carbon capture by 2025 to put it on the right path to restrict global warming, which translates to a $60 billion investment, the IEA said.

Royal Dutch Shell Plc said earlier this year that carbon capture and storage must exceed global emissions and that there needs to be 10,000 active projects to attain that goal. BP Plc Chief Executive Officer Bob Dudley said in April that CCS needs government subsidies to get going.

That’s a huge leap from where the industry is today. There are currently 18 large-scale CCS facilities operating worldwide, with five more under construction and a further four in advanced development, according to the Global CCS Institute.

Another factor slowing deployment down is the penalty for burning fossil fuels is still to low. While the cost of emitting one ton of carbon dioxide in Europe has more than doubled this year, it’s still less than half the 50 euros ($57) a ton needed to stimulate investment in green technologies, according to analysts at the IEA and researcher Carbon Tracker.

“Whilst new CCS projects are slowly coming on-stream every year, we need to scale up the rate of deployment dramatically,” said Luke Warren, CEO of the CCS Association. “Projects will go ahead in those countries that have favorable policies and incentive frameworks. In Europe, the U.K., Norway and the Netherlands are all well placed to take the lead on this critical technology.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Jeremy Hodges in London at jhodges17@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Reed Landberg at landberg@bloomberg.net, Andrew Reierson

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