The increase of carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration in the ambient air has become the key factor in the pace of temperature rise, and accordingly, is a primary contributor towards global warming scenario. In view of this, the quick mitigation efforts associated with capturing CO2 from fossil fuel combustion source must be implemented to alleviate environmental catastrophic events in future. Therefore, the purpose of this paper was to review the role and performances of activated carbon in capturing anthropogenic CO2 flue gas prior to emission to air. Throughout this paper, the activated carbons which were proposed to be a separation medium for CO2 capture are evaluated in terms of equilibrium adsorption capacity as well as the surface modification. The utilization of the activated carbons instead of current state-of-art technology, which is the chemical absorption is promising as it avoids higher energy penalty encountered in regeneration process and the consumption of corrosive chemical such as aqueous amine-based solvent. In addition, the investigation on the potential of activated carbons for post-combustion CO2 capture is expected to confer scientists with critical information related to the future direction of the activated carbons in an industrial application, and as an alternative to conventional amine scrubbing process. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd.