Carbon capture and storage is a "vital lifeline to beat climate change", according to an inaugural global CCS industry report which sets out the growing number of initiatives around the world aimed at accelerating the deployment of the technology.

Launched today at the sidelines of the COP24 UN Climate Summit in Poland, the report notes there are currently 18 large-scale CCS facilities in commercial operation around the world, with another five under construction and 20 more at various stage of development.

Compiled by the Global CCS Institute, the report advocates for technologies which capture carbon dioxide at source - from industry and fossil fuel energy infrastructure - to stop it being released into the atmosphere by instead storing it underground or utilising the gas for industrial processes.

Norway in particular has long been working on an initiative to develop a CCS "pipeline" to capture CO2 from industry and then store it in rocky caves under the North Sea, while last month the UK - after scrapping a £1bn project in 2015 - unveiled plans to deliver its first carbon capture utilisation and storage (CCUS) project by the mid-2020s.

Detractors argue nascent CCS technology is too expensive to be commercially viable, and that decarbonisation efforts and funding should instead be focused on new low carbon infrastructure rather than providing a hypothetical lifeline to high carbon industries.

But today's report points to growing and diverse support for CCS in helping to tackle climate change, such as in the IPCC's recent landmark report on keeping global warming within 1.5C, and argues scaling up the technology worldwide can create new jobs and product streams.

Moreover, there are no technical barriers to secure and permanent storage of carbon dioxide, it contends, highlighting recent studies suggesting the world currently has "at least a thousand years" of global CO2 storage resources.

Writing in the report, leading climate economist Lord Nicholas Stern said people were increasingly beginning to see the importance of CCS as "the one technology proven to decarbonise 'difficult' sectors such as cement and steel and locked-in fossil fuel-based infrastructure".

"The concept of industrial CCS hubs and clusters is taking rapid shape in North Western Europe and this is undoubtedly due to a growing group of leaders who can see the environmental and economic opportunity that CCS brings," Stern writes. "Industry is closely situated, storage resources are abundant, employment is assured, the business case is obvious."

But he stressed the need for policymakers and the private sector to step up efforts to unlock further funding for developing CCS worldwide. "The challenge now is to maintain the momentum, keep the funding pipeline flowing, demonstrate how costs can be reduced and accelerate the train that can deliver on Paris," he warns.

The report also cites International Energy Agency (IEA) analysis which has previously estimated that as much as 450Mt of CO2 could be captured, utilised, and stored globally for around $40 per tonne of carbon dioxide.

Global CCS Institute CEO Brad Page said there was now a wealth of evidence supporting the need for CCS, ranging from the recent IPCC 1.5C report to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

"It is now irrefutable that Paris targets can only be achieved by embracing a complete cache of clean solutions - of which CCS must be one," said Page.