China has a huge potential for carbon capture and storage (CSS), a mechanism that could prove crucial in the fight against climate change, said Serge Abou, EU ambassador to China.

"No projections beyond 2020 give any realistic hope of stopping the climate crisis without applying CCS in the power sector," he told China Daily yesterday. "So it is time now for the European Union (EU) and China to decide on the active promotion of CSS."

Abou was speaking following the results of the first phase of the China-EU Near-Zero Emissions Coal project, which is aimed at examining options for CCS in China, as well as the potential capacity and expertise.