At COP31 in Antalya, panelists from Heidelberg Materials, the Global CCS Institute, and Norwegian and Brazilian energy agencies argued that industrial carbon capture only scales when governments and companies split the risk. The main example is Heidelberg's Brevik cement plant in Norway, which will capture 400,000 metric tons of CO2 per year, about half the plant's emissions, and ship it through the Northern Lights network for subsea storage. That setup depends on cross-sector partnerships, not just better capture technology. Panelists also stressed temporary capture-side incentives and lead markets for low-carbon cement and materials, so buyers exist once the CO2 is stored. Norway's Sleipner and Longship history gives it a regulatory playbook that Brazil and Malaysia are now borrowing from, especially for MRV standards and offshore storage rules. The takeaway is that CCS projects need shared liability, demand signals, and knowledge transfer, not just engineering breakthroughs.
