In this paper we explore the development of two specific carbon capture technologies, namely Carbon Capture, Transport, and Storage (CCTS) and Direct Air Capture (DAC) with respect to the role attributed to them by long-term climate scenarios. We ask whether the critical assessment in earlier literature of the gap between ambitious targets in top-down energy and climate models and the modest level of real-world implementation still persists. We provide a survey of the full set of projects on CCTS in the energy and industry sectors, as well as of all DAC projects world-wide. For CCTS, we find that although several demonstration projects have been implemented over the past 15 years, the scale of deployment remains low. In the power sector, only a few large-scale projects remain operational as of 2025; others have been delayed or cancelled. Industrial CCTS shows broader engagement, yet most projects remain below the 1 MtCO2 /year threshold. The deployment of DAC, too, has remained at very low levels: While integrated assessment models (e.g., EMF-38 and AR6 scenarios) project deployment of several gigatons per year by 2050, the actual installed DAC capacity in June 2025 remains below 0.05 MtCO2 /year. The paper concludes that while carbon capture remains a compelling field for innovation, the gap between scenario optimism and real-world progress has not closed. This is not the “fault” of the models, but these findings suggest that optimal technology deployment strategies might be more complex to implement than these models suggest.
