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Brussels, 29 April 2024 - Corporate Europe Observatory and ReCommon's newly launched research exposes how a group with no legitimacy, the Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) Forum, has defined some of the EU’s key energy policies.
The CCUS Forum, set up in 2021 by the European Commission, was invited to steer regulation and public funding for CCUS, associated CO2 infrastructure, and speculative carbon capture and storage (CCS)-based ‘carbon removal’ technologies.
The Carbon Coup report critically examines the CCUS Forum, from its origins, scope and role to its composition and influence. The report debunks claims by the European Commission purporting that the forum includes a balanced representation of stakeholders. Instead our research finds that the CCUS Forum has only gotten bigger and more controlled by fossil fuel interests with each year. The forum is heavily influenced by fossil fuel polluters like Equinor, TotalEnergies, Shell and Snam as well as lobby groups like the International Association of Oil & Gas Producers (IOGP). Fossil fuel industry’s interests dominate all CCUS’s working groups, which have had incredible influence on the content of the Commission’s proposal for an Industrial Carbon Management Strategy (ICMS).
The Commission’s proposal increases the EU’s targets for capturing CO2 to 280 million tonnes (Mt) by 2040 and 450Mt by 2050. However, EU countries currently capture only 1 Mt of CO2 per year, and can’t permanently store any of it. Proposed targets mean that CO2 capture capacity would actually need to increase by 450 times over the next 25 years, despite the blatant repeated failures to get CCS projects off the ground in the last 25 years.
Belén Balanyá, Researcher and Campaigner at Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO), says:
“The ICMS has copy-pasted the CCUS Forum’s proposals to establish a single market for carbon dioxide, which would require billions of euros from public money to build a massive net of CO2 infrastructure which is expensive, risky, unnecessary and would lock in the fossil fuel economy, diverting from real solutions towards climate destruction. The Commission’s efforts to present the CCUS Forum as a ‘balanced’ multi-stakeholder group are misleading. The CCUS is nothing more than a vehicle for fossil fuel industry lobbying. But as a result of the forum’s influence, the EU is now planning to vastly scale-up a risky, costly and repeatedly failed technology at a speed and magnitude that has no basis in reality. Fossil fuel industry should have no place influencing climate policy.”
In addition, following CCUS Forum demands, the Commission is proposing to develop 19,000km of very risky CO2 infrastructure in Europe by 2040 which include CO2 pipelines and shipping routes. CO2 pipelines can leak or rupture, potentially explosively, and multiply environmental, health and safety risks which can result in the asphyxiation of humans and animals. In April 2024 an ExxonMobil-owned CO2 pipeline leak in the US state of Louisiana, resulted in the issuance of a shelter-in-place order for local residents to avoid the risk of asphyxiation.
Elena Gerebizza, researcher and campaigner at ReCommon warns of the lack of transparency over safety, feasibility and the cost of – as well as market demand for – Eni and Snam’s CO2 Hub project in Ravenna, Italy, noting that: "Developing CCUS infrastructure speculates on the -promised but never delivered- potential to capture, transport, and store CO2 in the future – but no corporation can say for how long that CO2 will stay put. 50 years, 100 years? Forever? Snam and its peers are exposing us to an unbearable uncertainty for the planet and for society as a whole, when we already have a clear solution. Divesting away from fossil fuels immediately."
ENDS
For media inquiries, please contact
Belén Balanyá, Corporate Europe Observatory researcher and campaigner
+31633090386, belen@corporateeurope.org
Elena Gerebizza, ReCommon researcher and campaigner
+393406705319, egerebizza@recommon.org
Additional Information:
Other findings of the report include:
The ICMS proposal promises to “use the CCUS Forum” to “increase public understanding”– yet the Forum’s working group on ‘public perception’ touts the message that “it is crucial to establish the legitimacy of CCUS technology among the public”. This suggests that its aim is rather to manipulate public perception and fabricate consent for a dangerous and flawed techno-fix.