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Whilst carbon capture and storage (CCS) has been promoted as a direct countermeasure against global warming, there remains much debate about what its final role as a climate change mitigation strategy will be. One key criticism directed towards CCS has been its inability to gain public support. This study compares public attitudes to the range of low carbon energy sources and technologies across Australia and China, and is the first study to compare primary data across these two countries on this topic. An online survey encompassing a broad set of questions was used to identify the factors that are associated with support for CCS compared to other energy technologies. Data were collected from a nationally representative Australian sample (n = 2383) and from Chinese urban residents across six regions (n = 1266). The survey confirmed low levels of knowledge and support for CCS in both countries. However, male respondents, those who perceived themselves to have higher knowledge of CCS, and those who valued economic outcomes over environmental protection were more likely to support CCS - as long as the risks were not perceived to outweigh the benefits. The results found that for Australians who believed in human-induced climate change they were likely to be unsupportive of CCS. This opposition appears to be linked to no tolerance for extending fossil fuels as in our factor analysis CCS was aligned to fossil fuels in Australia. In both countries, support for renewable energy technologies remains strong. Given the International Energy Agency's future energy demand projections, combined with slow progress towards meeting the Paris Climate Agreement, the lack of knowledge and support for CCS is concerning. While there have been some technological advances, without parallel improvements in public acceptance of CCS, it will be difficult to see any commercial projects going forward in the near future. Although, the Chinese government's success in educating on climate science, as evidenced in these results, suggests that they may be more effective at informing the public of the benefits of CCS and take the lead on its deployment for climate change mitigation. Based on the latest climate models, it is almost crunch time for governments to decide if CCS has a role to play as part of an energy transition to a low carbon future or perhaps it may be time to turn their focus to climate adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Understanding carbon emissions embodied in trade is an important prerequisite for the effective formulation of climate mitigation policies. Based on input–output analysis and panel regression models, this study proposes a multi-step forecasting procedure to simulate carbon emissions embodied in bilateral trade. We calculate carbon emissions embodied in the trade between China and Australia during 2000–2014 and forecast the same for the period 2015–2022 under four different development scenarios. The results show that, during 2000–2014, net carbon outflow from China to Australia increased from 2.2 to 15.5 Mt CO 2 , concentrated in textile and heavy manufacturing sectors. The simulation results show that, the forecasts of "R&D focus" and "GDP focus" scenarios constitute the lower and upper bounds of embodied emissions, and the latter is more than two times of the former in 2022 both for embodied emissions in Australia's exports and China's exports. Finally, conclusions are drawn and policy implications are discussed. Highlights • A multi-step forecasting procedure of carbon emissions embodied in trade is proposed. • Carbon emissions embodied in China–Australia trade during 2000–2014 are analyzed. • A scenario analysis is conducted for emissions embodied in China–Australia trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]