According to these experts, the rapid elimination of CO₂ emissions from coal use is of utter importance if a viable solution to climate change is to be achieved. This can be brought about through the “elimination of fossil fuel subsidies as well as a substantial rising price on carbon emissions,” said the plan.  

Eliminating coal emissions would require strong emphasis on achieving improved efficiency, a “smart grid” and implementing ways to achieve additional energy storage. Furthermore technologies successfully proven and demonstrated at the commercial scale should be applied in a much wider scale. Replacing coal power with biomass, geothermal, wind, solar, and eventual deployment of fourth-generation nuclear power plants are among the solutions put forward.
 
The paper sees an increasingly greater role for CO₂ capture and storage (CCS) beyond 2030 as an essential supplement of the above technological solutions. CCS technologies “would eventually have to be applied in all remaining coal plants.” Therefore more large scale demonstrations will be essential to address the two greatest challenges for deploying widespread CCS; namely the “reduction of capital costs (which are largely related to capture) and reduction of uncertainties related to long-term, large-scale storage.”

Yet, the potential of CCS, according to this publication, does not end there. The paper examines the possibility of combining biomass combustion with CCS, thus providing so-called carbon-negative power, by extracting CO₂ from the atmosphere.

The discussed plan reconfirms the perception that the solutions to tackle climate change are already available, as has also been argued by Bellona’s own report  – “How to Combat Global Warming” – on how to tackle climate change. Furthermore it underlines once more the need for rich industrialised states to take the lead towards developing and applying the necessary solutions to achieve necessary emission cuts.