Carbon capture doesn't work — yet the EU is going for it

But the Industrial Carbon Management Forum (ICM Forum) — ending on Friday (11 October) in Pau, France, that advises the European Commission on carbon capture, is a textbook case of false solutions, corporate capture, and fossil-fuel influence.

The problem? Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technologies are prohibitively expensive, haven’t improved in 40 years, and don’t work as a climate solution.

In reality carbon capture is an industry ploy to delay a fossil fuel phase out; it doesn't work at scale, but what it does do is reinforce fossil fuel infrastructures – and even more oil extraction – rather than encouraging a necessary transition to real alternatives.

Failed technology

The ICM Forum working groups, dominated by fossil-fuel interests, have been given a mandate to shape key EU energy policy, greenwash, and waste billions in public money to protect industry interests.

That's a major obstacle to genuine climate action. CCS (or CCUS when including utilisation in products) is a cornerstone of the fossil-fuel industry's attempts to evade the kind of profit-threatening emissions cuts that scientists affirm are essential to avoid runaway climate change.

Carbon capturing technologies have been trialed for over 50 years, to the tune of more than $83bn [€76bn] globally, with negligible results.

Today, EU countries capture just 1.9 Mt CO2 per year and permanently store none of it. That’s a pathetic 0.076 percent of the EU’s 2023 emissions. Barely 53Mt have been captured globally.

An Oxford University report shows no evidence of technological improvements or cost reductions in any part of the capture, transport, or storage process in the last four decades — and a high-CCS pathway would cost $20 trillion more.

Despite these failings, the EU has spent the past two years turbo-charging policies to support the massive scale-up of this technology.

The most recent effort is the Industrial Carbon Management Strategy (ICMS) which echoes industry demands by dramatically upping carbon capture targets to 450Mt by 2050, requiring 19,000km of CO2 transport infrastructure by 2040 — set to cost European taxpayers a whopping €16bn.

Achieving these targets would require at least a 200-fold increase in capacity over the next 25 years — an implausible feat, given only 40 projects are operational globally and 80 percent of attempted large-scale CCUS projects fail.

A new study by IEEFA estimates the total cost of Europe’s planned CCS projects will be €520bn, of which as much as €140bn required from taxpayers.

So why is the EU pushing risky, costly, proven-to-fail carbon capture technologies when better alternatives exist, like reliable, rapidly advancing, and quicker-to-implement renewables?

Put simply: lobbyists.

Corporate Europe Observatory's Carbon Coup report revisited report reveals the commission's own annual advisory ICM Forum, set up in 2021, is a fossil-fuel industry jamboree.

It’s comprised of industry insiders and organisations tied to — or at least in lockstep with — fossil-fuel interests, yet has exerted significant influence over CCUS regulations and EU public funding – and is even invited to steer policy.

The commission’s efforts to present the ICM Forum as a ‘balanced’ multi-stakeholder platform are misleading: every working group is chaired by the fossil fuel industry or pro-CCUS, industry-linked organisations.

The ICM Forum’s proposals have already shaped key policies — such as the ICMS taxpayer-subsidised infrastructure targets.

As EU commissioner Kadri Simson told the 2023 CCUS Forum: “You called for a specific and verifiable target for storage capacity, industrial support, and structural solutions… and this proposal does exactly that. I believe this is an opportunity for EU oil and gas producers.”

Ticking time bomb

Worryingly, the ICMS includes provisions protecting fossil-fuel companies from liability. But CO2 pipelines are a ticking time bomb; several leaks in the US have already led to shelter-in-place orders and hospitalisations.

Recently updated CCS directive guidance documents show major monitoring gaps, self-reported safety measures, and scarce industry liability periods.

The oil and gas lobby knows that if it can lock in CO2 infrastructure it can effectively lock in the future of fossil fuels. It offers the false promise that nothing has to change — even as global warming supercharges dangerous weather events, such as the atypical hurricane currently heading straight for the site of this week's ICM Forum location in France.

That’s why it is so insidious that the commission has copy-pasted the ICM Forum’s demands and is now handing them the implementation of key energy policies, which would force countries to throw billions of public money at the cost of real solutions.

The CCUS Forum is an archetypal example of corporate capture, one enthusiastically endorsed by the commission, in a major coup for the fossil fuel industry.

An industry whose history of lobbying to delay, weaken and sabotage climate action, along with its vested interest in keeping fossil fuels flowing, means it should have no place influencing climate policy. Instead, an EU capable of meeting its climate justice responsibilities needs fossil-free politics. 

We cannot allow this push for large-scale CCUS, CO2 infrastructure, and a CO2 market to be an escape hatch for the fossil fuel industry, nor a costly distraction from taking urgent action to tackle the climate crisis.