Increasing use of the latest electronic gadgets in modern society causes rapid growth in electromagnetic pollution, which leads to detrimental effects on the function of highly sensitive precision electronic equipment as well as on human life. Mitigating this effect requires efficient electromagnetic radiation shielding materials, which should be lightweight, corrosion resistant and cost-effective. In this review article, we have presented lightweight polymer composite foams filled with carbon nanofibers, carbon nanotubes and graphene as efficient electromagnetic radiation shielding materials. It is seen that the low loading of multiwalled carbon nanotubes with uniform dispersion in polymer, uniform cell size of pore and controlled dielectric constant results in the attenuation of electromagnetic radiation by absorption phenomena. Flexible graphene–polymer composite foam derived using the chemical vapor deposition technique demonstrates a specific shielding effectiveness of ∼333 dB cm 3 g −1 , which is the highest value among those reported in literature. The SE is mostly dominated by the absorption of electromagnetic radiation, which is due to the multiple reflection of radiation inside the cells of the composite foam. Moreover, different carbon nanomaterial, such as carbon nanofibers and few layer graphene-filled polymer composite foams, with varying content of conducting filler are reported in this review. Their use in different applications, their future prospective and the challenges ahead are discussed in this review.