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Carbon dioxide utilization is increasingly attracting interest. CO2 utilization involves a multitude of processes and chemical reactions. In this context, the goal of this review is to analyze the techno‐economic feasibility, sustainability, and social opportunities of CO2 utilization, as a possible contribution to CO2 mitigation in Europe. Industries and the most recent European projects related to carbon capture and utilization are also discussed, illustrating Europe's performance dynamics in science, research, and innovation in this field. The latest developments in CO2 utilization are thus reviewed, including chemicals, mineral carbonation, and biological uses. This study examines a few CO2‐based pathways at high level of maturity covering a wide range of applications, and discusses their current technical feasibility, economic viability, sustainability, and social aspects. They are then evaluated using several indicators to provide a figure of merit, where qualitative results are intended. The mapping and ranking of CO2 utilization pathways may provide a valuable means in prioritizing support and funding to facilitate the development of large‐scale CO2 utilization projects in Europe. Finally, key challenges and opportunities are discussed. The review shows that CO2 utilization may not be a complete solution for Europe, but will support climate change objectives, circular economy, and resource and energy security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim To project the potential European distribution of seven broad habitat categories (needle-leaved, broad-leaved, mixed and mediterranean forest, urban, grassland and cropland) in order to assess effects of land use, climate change and increase in CO2 on predicted habitat changes up to the year 2050. Location Europe. Method We modelled the response of European vegetation to changes in land use, climate and CO2 by combining the land-use model Dyna- CLUE (based on the CORINE land-cover data) and the dynamic vegetation model LPJ-GUESS. Two reforestation options were explored: maintaining the current range of tree species ( EFI) or promoting naturally occurring tree species ( NAT). Climate data from two general circulation models and two SRES scenarios ( A2 and B1) were used. The broad habitat types were classified according to a combination of land use and the dominant plant species. Results Our models predicted that croplands and grasslands are expected to decrease due to land-use change. Although climate change has a negative effect on needle-leaved forest, it is expected to maintain its area or even increase in the EFI reforestation option while mediterranean, broad-leaved and mixed forests are expected to increase markedly. All investigated drivers have shown some effect, but land use is the dominant contributor to broad habitat change except for needle-leaved and mixed which are mainly influenced by climate change. Main conclusions Land use is predicted to have the greatest effect on broad habitat distribution according to our simulations. Hence in most parts of Europe mitigating actions should focus on land-use change rather than climate change. According to our simulation, the effects of the different drivers are not in general additive. In some cases they act synergistically and in some cases antagonistically. The projected habitat changes are a valuable tool for species distribution modelling and are available online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]