On 15 December the European Commission adopted its Energy Roadmap for 2050, which "seeks to develop a long-term European technology-neutral framework in which [national energy] policies will be more effective". It argues that "a European approach to the energy challenge will increase security and solidarity and lower costs compared to parallel national schemes by providing a wider and flexible market for new products and services."

The roadmap outlines that "for all fossil fuels, CCS will have to be applied from around 2030 onwards in the power sector in order to reach the decarbonisation targets. CCS is also an important option for decarbonisation of several heavy industries and combined with biomass could deliver "carbon negative" values. The future of CCS crucially depends on public acceptance and adequate carbon prices; it needs to be sufficiently demonstrated on a large scale and investment in the technology ensured in this decade, and then deployed from 2020, in order to be feasible for widespread use by 2030."