The Ni/ZrO2, Ni/CaZrO2, Ni/SiO2 and Ni/Mg(Al)O catalysts were employed in the CO2 methanation. The catalysts were characterized by XPS (reduced in situ and passivated), XRD (reduced in situ and passivated along with Rietveld refinement), EPR, TPSR of CO2 plus H2 and CO plus H2, cyclohexane dehydrogenation model reaction, CO2-TPD and chemical analysis. The metallic area of all of these catalysts was prepared to be similar among them in order to investigate the role of the support during the methanation of CO2. The behaviors of these catalysts in the CO2 methanation were analyzed employing a conventional catalytic test. The Ni/ZrO2 catalyst exhibited the highest activity and selectivity toward the methanation of CO2 against Ni/Mg(Al)O and Ni/SiO2. Oxygen vacancies are suggested to be responsible for the excellent performance of the Ni/ZrO2 catalyst. Based on the above, Ca was added to the Ni/ZrO2 catalyst, the metallic area did not change whereas the CO2 consumption rate almost tripled. The XRD, XPS and EPR analyses showed that mainly Ca positive 2 but also some Ni2 positive are on the ZrO2 lattice surface of the Ni/CaZrO2 catalyst. These cations form oxygen vacancies and unsaturated coordination sites (cus) pairs, which are strong basic and acid sites pairs, respectively. In short, increasing the concentration of these pairs by adding Ca to Ni/ZrO2, not only does the amount of CO2 adsorbed increase, but also the number of active sites of the rate limiting step, which is enhanced leading to an increase of the Zr based catalyst activity in the CO2 methanation.