〗The use of functional carbon materials with developed porous structure for wastewater treatment and for removal of spilled oil, and spilled hazardous substances has become increasingly important. The present status and recent progress in using carbon materials as adsorbents in emergency pollution accidents are reviewed. The potential applications in emergency pollution accidents and necessary future work are outlined briefly. It is pointed out that more work is required in terms of exploring effective procedures, optimizing the operation conditions and developing novel carbon materials, which will provide more efficient and costeffective ways for emergency response to deal with the polluting accidents in future.