DNV published its Energy Transition Outlook 2026 on 7 October. The forecast has energy-related CO₂ emissions falling 44% by 2050, with net zero reached in 2098, and finds 1.5°C now effectively unattainable, while keeping warming well below 2°C remains attainable only with stronger commitments. DNV has cut its long-term carbon capture and storage (CCS) forecast by 15% against the 2025 edition, and revised the de-risked 2030 pipeline from the 210 million tonnes a year estimated in its 2025 CCS to 2050 report to 120 million tonnes a year. DNV attributes the slippage to projects lacking defined financing and transport and storage infrastructure, and assumes investors treat CCS as high risk until market designs, regulatory frameworks and offtake structures mature.
RMRI observes that the premium DNV models for CCS, 11 to 16% initially against 6% for mature renewables in Europe, combines two different kinds of risk. Storage performance, capture availability and construction outturn are evidence-addressable, and each project that operates should bring that part of the premium down. The maturing of market designs, regulatory frameworks and offtake structures that DNV assumes is different. It turns on policy discretion and no operating record will resolve it, but it can be allocated to the parties best placed to carry it. The question for investors and governments is how the premium divides between the two, because deployment retires the first and only deliberate allocation can deal with the second.