The present description relates to recombinant or engineered carbonic anhydrase polypeptides, variants, and functional derivatives thereof, having improved properties that make them advantageous for use in CO2 capture operations (e.g., CO2 capture solvents, alkaline pH, and/or elevated temperatures), as well as polynucleotides and vectors encoding same. The present description also relates to methods, processes and systems for CO2 capture which make use of the recombinant or engineered carbonic anhydrase polypeptides, variants, and functional derivatives thereof.