Governments have spent over $20 billion – and have approved up to $200 billion more – of public money on carbon capture and storage (CCS), providing a lifeline for the fossil fuel industry.
79% of operating carbon capture capacity globally sends captured CO2 to produce more oil (via Enhanced Oil Recovery).
Many of the largest CCS projects in the world overpromise and under-deliver, operating far below capacity.
Carbon, Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCS or CCUS) has a 50-year history of failure. CCS is often presented as a new technology to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by trapping CO2 from a smokestack or directly from the air and then injecting it into the ground for storage. In fact, CCS was first developed in the 1970s to enhance oil production, and increased oil production remains its primary use. Oil Change International research finds that 79% of operating carbon capture capacity globally sends captured CO2 to produce more oil (via Enhanced Oil Recovery).
Yet Big Oil consistently tells us that CCS is central to the fight against climate change. Chevron, for example, says that CCS will make a “lower carbon future possible.”
In the run-up to COP28 in the United Arab Emirates, the oil industry and many governments are ramping up their promotion of CCS as an integral part of the collective response to climate change. There has been a flurry of renewed government commitments, conferences, and new industry initiatives, coupled with continuing misinformation. Governments around the world have spent over $20 billion – and have approved up to $200 billion more – of public money on CCS, providing a lifeline for the fossil fuel industry.
In October 2023, ADNOC, the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, whose CEO, Sultan Al Jaber, is the COP28 President, announced that it planned to double its CCS capacity to 10 million tonnes per year. But ADNOC’s existing flagship CCS project, which is supposed to capture emissions from a steel plant, is only designed to capture around 17% of that plant’s maximum CO2 pollution. Furthermore, there is no publicly available information about how much CO2 it has actually captured. What the CCS project does capture is used to increase oil production, leading to more emissions when burned.
As governments prepare to spend up to $200 million of public money on CCS, it must be clear: CCS is a lifeline for the fossil fuel industry, not people and planet.
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Subsidies
Governments have spent over $20 billion – and have legislated or announced policies that could spend up to $200 billion more – of public money on CCS, providing a lifeline for the fossil fuel industry.
Key facts
Ten governments have already spent at least $22 billion on CCS and Fossil-Hydrogen.
This number is likely very conservative due to a shocking lack of transparency on government subsidies and tax credits.
Twelve governments have approved policies that could funnel up to $200 billion more toward CCS and Hydrogen.
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Carbon Capture Serves Oil and Gas Production
A Majority of Carbon Capture Projects Serve To Produce More Oil and Gas, Not Reduce Emissions
Data from our project’s database and analysis from leading experts such as IEEFA and others show that the majority of carbon capture (CCS) projects exist only to enable oil and gas production and fail to reduce overall emissions.
Key facts
79% of operating carbon capture capacity globally sends captured CO2 to produce more oil (via Enhanced Oil Recovery)
67% of operating carbon capture capacity globally captures emissions from processing CO2-rich gas.
Here’s DeSmog’s take on what to expect at this year’s climate summit, from Big Oil’s influence, to a new Big Ag agenda, to promotion of sketchy solutions that would keep oil and gas burning for decades to come.
The United Arab Emirates’ pavilion at COP27. Credit: Adam Barnett
The annual United Nations climate negotiations are just a week away. Known as COP28 — since it’s the 28th year of the “conference of the parties” to the United Nations climate agreement — it will be hosted by the United Arab Emirates in Dubai from November 30 through December 12.
COP28 will be especially significant, as it will feature the first-ever “global stocktake,” of how much progress — or lack thereof — countries and other stakeholders have made toward meeting the goal established in 2015’s Paris Agreement of limiting warming to “well below” 2º degrees Celsius.
Negotiators at COP28 will also aim to make progress on key climate issues including loss and damage finance, a just energy transition, and closing the emissions gap.
As the climate crisis accelerates, so, too, do efforts by the fossil fuel industry to derail steep reductions in carbon pollution by mid-century, in part by promoting false solutions. Below, we’ve rounded up recent coverage to help you make sense of the key denial and greenwashing narratives that will be front and center during the event.
A Big Presence from Big Oil
After all, this is the first annual climate conference with a Big Oil exec at the top: COP28 President Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber.
Al Jaber, the person leading these global climate negotiations, is the CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC). He has openly called for fossil fuel companies’ “help to drive the solutions,” and advocated overcoming “the hurdles to scale up and commercialize hydrogen and carbon capture technologies” — two so-far unproven climate solutions being heavily promoted by the fossil fuel industry. A big presence from Big Oil would be in line with trends at the past two summits: 636 fossil fuel lobbyists registered to attend last year’s conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, while 503 registered for 2021’s gathering in Glasgow.
The fossil fuel industry will paint carbon capture and storage (CCS) as a climate solution during this year’s conference. Critics argue it is anything but.
Of the 32 commercial CCS facilities operating worldwide, 22 use most, or all, of their captured carbon dioxide (CO2) to pump more oil out of depleted wells. Burning that oil creates far more CO2 than what is captured.
DeSmog recently analyzed 12 large-scale CCS projects around the world and found countless missed carbon capture targets, as well as cost overruns, with taxpayers picking up the tab via billions of dollars in subsidies. Despite these failures, Big Oil publicly champions CCS and pushes projects over communities’ objections. Privately, the industry shares critics’ concerns.
With the Biden administration channeling billions of dollars into investments and tax credits for CCS, the United States is likely to be a key CCS supporter at the conference.
This year’s climate conference is coming on the heels of the world’s hottest year, with devastating floods around the world affecting the global food supply, and more than 330 million people worldwide facing famine. So COP28 leaders have released a four-point “food and agriculture” agenda for the summit that calls for governments and industry to collaborate on finding new solutions to climate change–driven food insecurity.
However, some of the biggest companies in agribusiness, are using greenwashing to shift the debate away from meaningful action. DeSmog has debunked six concepts that the world’s largest food and farming companies will be co-opting in hopes of swaying debates and discussions in Dubai — including “regenerative agriculture,” “nature-based solutions,” and “climate neutrality.” Stay tuned for DeSmog’s coverage from Dubai — our team will be keeping a close eye on Big Ag.
Ever wonder how a top oil-producing nation like the United Arab Emirates earned hosting duties for this year’s climate summit, or why the chief of UAE’s state oil company ADNOC, Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, has ascended to one of the top roles in global climate negotiations? Reporting by DeSmog revealed that from 2007 to 2009, Edelman, the largest public relations firm in the world, ran a campaign to bolster the UAE and Al Jaber’s green images.
Disinformation strategies and narratives will be on display throughout the summit — much as we reported during COP27, where fossil fuel-linked groups spent around $4 million on social media ads that spread false climate claims.
The disinformation may flow thicker and faster than ever during COP28. As DeSmog has reported, over the past five years climate greenwashing has “gone through the roof,” as major polluters turn to greenwashing to avoid accountability for the climate crisis. In part, this may be a response to the increasing number of climate lawsuits and legal complaints against misleading climate claims. Attorneys general across the U.S. have charged fossil fuel companies with defrauding consumers by lying about the impacts of burning coal, oil, and gas — while activists and campaigners in Europe seek to hold Big Oil accountable under regulations against misleading advertising.
To understand disinformation tactics and where they come from, dig into DeSmog’s reporting about past greenwashing campaigns. We recently shone a light on the way the gas industry borrowed Big Tobacco’s tactics to promote doubt over the health effects of gas stoves. Or read our investigation into how corporate polluters and their political allies have been using the same rhetoric of delay for the past six decades when faced with the prospect of regulation.
Keir Starmer sucking up to the rich and powerful at World Economic Forum, Davos.
A Guardian article is saying that Labour Party leader Keith Starmer and shadow climate secretary Ed Miliband are promoting “carbon capture to support industries that still need oil and gas to pipe their waste CO2 into depleted North Sea oilfields; building floating windfarms for deep-water sites; and in green hydrogen – a zero carbon fuel needed for energy-intensive industries such as steelmaking, railways and chemicals production.”
Carbon capture is a scam to benefit the fossil-fuel industry, I don’t know if windfarms are needed for deep-water sites and green hydrogen is far from ideal. What’s needed really is a move from or transform these industries so that they don’t need vast amounts of energy. Green hydrogen needs vast amounts of energy in it’s production. Starmer can’t get away from sucking up to the fossil-fuel industry, it’s not going to be any different with him.
11.30 I’ve worked out how to secure deep-water windfarms assuming that securing them is the problem.
Analysis deems technology promoted by Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber ‘dangerous red herring’
Dr. Sultan al Jaber. Image: Arctic Circle, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Climate-wrecking emissions produced by the oil company of the Cop28 president, Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, would take hundreds of years to remove using the carbon capture technology he has been promoting.
With just weeks to go until the crucial Cop28 climate summit, Al Jaber, who is the boss of United Arab Emirate oil company Adnoc, has been backing carbon capture as one solution to the climate crisis.
But analysis by Global Witness has found it would take the company 343 years to capture all the CO2 emissions it will produce in just the next six years.
Jonathan Noronha Gant from Global Witness said the findings proved carbon capture was “a dangerous red herring” that would do nothing to tackle the climate crisis.
“Sultan Al Jaber’s Cop is shaping up to be the Cop of false solutions, inundated by fossil fuel lobbyists pushing empty promises. If Al Jaber is serious – if we are serious – we must immediately reject the CCS [carbon capture and storage] false solution and tackle the existential oil and gas problem head on.’’
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Labour leader Keir Starmer. Credit: DeSmog via UK Parliament (CC BY 3.0)
A trade group for contested carbon capture with close ties to major oil and gas companies is sponsoring over a dozen events at the Conservative and Labour conferences over the next fortnight.
Fossil fuel companies are using the technology as “a fig leaf” to pursue oil and gas drilling, campaigners have warned, as industry lobbyists across the energy sector seek to win over policymakers.
The Carbon Capture and Storage Association (CCSA), a trade body promoting carbon capture utilisation and storage (CCUS), is due to host 15 events across the Conservative and Labour gatherings, which begin on Sunday in Manchester.
The London-based CCSA describes itself as the “lead” European organisation for CCUS, promoting the “rapid” and “commercial” deployment of the technology. The process involves capturing CO2 emissions from industrial production and storing it underground. Some technologies allow the captured CO2 to be re-used by converting it into plastics, concrete or biofuel.
The group says that its members are “companies across the CCUS industry” including “support services in the energy sector” such as law, banking and consultancy.
Nearly a fifth of the CCSA’s 100 members are oil and gas companies, including BP, Exxon, Shell and Equinor. Fossil fuels are the largest contributor to climate change, producing 75 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and nearly 90 percent of all carbon dioxide emissions.
The CCSA board is also dominated by key figures at oil and gas companies, including BP, Equinor, TotalEnergies and Shell.
Lorne Stockman, research co-director at the campaign group Oil Change International, told DeSmog: “It’s very clear what carbon capture serves and who it’s a solution for, and that’s the fossil fuel industry.
“This isn’t about the best way of addressing the climate crisis, it’s about keeping the industry in business.”
He said the companies were trying to hedge their bets by winning over both the Conservatives and Labour, in the hope of continued government funding to support the high infrastructure costs.
“They pay both parties as much as they can,” said Stockman. “They’ve got the resources, they’ve got the money, they’ve got the influence, and of course they’re showing up to ensure that the fossil fuel industry continues to get public support even while we try to confront the climate emergency.”
Carbon capture and storage, and the extension of the technology, CCUS, has been touted by major polluters as a way to cut their production emissions to meet climate targets.
But the role of carbon capture in the energy transition is hotly contested. Climate scientists point to the failure of CCS to remove significant amounts of CO2 emissions while campaigners warn of the high costs compared to renewable energy. The vast majority of companies use the captured CO2 to extract more oil through a process called “enhanced oil recovery”.
A DeSmog analysis published this week found the majority of large-scale global CCS projects have spectacularly failed to deliver what they promised, overran budgets and targets, and resulted in a net increase in emissions.
A CCSA spokesperson told DeSmog: “We are proud to bring a wide variety of our members to party conferences this year to engage with politicians, delegates and the media on the vital role carbon capture and storage technology will play in the net zero transition.
“This technology will ensure industry can continue to support jobs making critical products such as steel and cement in the UK, rather than importing them from abroad, as well as creating 70,000 new jobs in green industries.
“Carbon capture technology will be an important part of the solution, alongside reducing energy use and rolling out renewable electricity as we all work together to reach net zero.”
Fossil Fuel Presence
The UK government has committed £20 billion of investment for carbon capture and storage over the next 20 years, and aims to capture and store 20-30 million tonnes of CO2 per year by 2030 and over 50 million by 2035.
The “CCUS Investor Roadmap”, updated this year, sets out plans to deliver four CCUS “low-carbon” industrial clusters by 2030, and capture and store nine million tonnes of CO2 from industrial CCS by 2035.
Despite well-documented concerns over carbon capture, industry executives will look to increase the government’s commitments further and showcase its “key role in decarbonising industry”, when they join the Conservatives in Manchester next week, and Labour in Liverpool later in the month.
Experts and MPs – yet to be named – have been invited to the group’s ticketed drinks receptions, while a number of talks are dedicated to promoting the technology as a crucial part of the UK’s “green industrial revolution”.
“Our politics are shot through with oil and gas lobbyists, it’s just at party conferences they come into the light a little bit more,” Tessa Khan, executive director of fossil fuel campaign group Uplift, told DeSmog.
“This is a ludicrous amount of special pleading for a technology, carbon capture and storage, that, on the current trajectory, will play a marginal role in reducing industrial emissions and at worst is a fig leaf for more oil and gas drilling.”
The CCSA reception in Liverpool at the Labour Party conference will feature food, drinks and speeches from industry leaders, with members of the shadow cabinet expected to attend.
Doug Parr, chief scientist and policy director at Greenpeace, told DeSmog that CCS “has been used and continues to be used as a cover for fossil fuel exploitation”.
“If the CCS crew are out and about at party conferences, one has to have a suspicion, given the number of fossil fuel industries that continue to be involved with them, that that’s what’s being attempted in the UK”, he said.
Board Members and Political Influence
Individuals from the fossil fuel industries are well represented on the CCSA board, as well as the group’s membership.
Oil and gas companies TotalEnergies, Wintershall Dea, Uniper, Phillips 66 UK, Neptune Energy and Eni are also members of the CCSA, alongside Drax, the UK’s single largest emitter of CO2. Drax is seeking an estimated £31.7 billion in subsidies for its proposed biomass energy carbon capture and storage (BECCS) plant, which is being trialled in its CCUS “incubation area” in North Yorkshire.
The CCSA board is also dominated by career oil and gas executives who have spent decades working in the industry.
Chair of the CCSA, Jonathan Briggs, is director of a CCS project run by Vitol, a Dutch multinational energy and commodity company which trades oil, gas and coal. Briggs works on the “Humber Zero” project to decarbonise VPI Power’s Combined Cycle Gas Turbine in Immingham, North Lincolnshire.
The board includes Rowaa Ahmar, group head of public affairs, policy and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) at biomass company Drax, the UK’s largest single emitter of CO2.
Other board members include Graeme Davies, a project director at Harbour Energy; Shirley Oliveira, vice president for hydrogen and CCUS advisory services at BP; Dan Sadler, UK vice president for low carbon solutions at Equinor; Gaël Le Parc, UK CCS director for TotalEnergies; and Steve Schofield, head of climate and carbon policy and advocacy at the corporate relations department of Shell.
The CCSA also has political connections. CCSA president, Baroness Liddell, was a Labour minister under former prime ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Joe Butler-Trewin, CCSA’s Public Affairs and Communications Officer in London, worked on Keir Starmer’s 2020 campaign for the Labour leadership.
The Conservative and Labour parties did not respond when contacted for comment.
