zemeunvalsts.lv note: an informative article explaining how and where the European Union, too, spends money (and ineffectively at that) – on ostensibly noble aims, of course – on CO₂ sequestration, while also passing off wishful thinking as fact, and so on. At the same time, in the context of the Nature Restoration Regulation, Latvia (and not only Latvia) will be forced to reduce the forest area available for economic use?! So... the EU can utterly ineffectively spend billions, but cannot/will not/is unable to compensate for the restrictions imposed by protected habitats of European importance...
According to an analysis by the research and advocacy group Oil Change International (OCI), European Union countries rank high among the world’s wealthy nations that spend billions in public funds on so-called “climate solutions” which “persistently fail, are overfunded or are insufficiently effective”.
The report focuses primarily on carbon capture and storage (CCS) and fossil hydrogen. CCS involves capturing emissions at their source, and this technology is actively promoted by gas and oil companies as a way of carrying on using fossil fuels.
As the report’s authors note, despite many decades of research and global state subsidies of US$30 billion (€27 billion) over the past 40 years, the technology “has failed to deliver any meaningful reduction in carbon emissions”.
First, the money. Since 1984, when the first pilot projects were launched, 80% of them have failed because of technical problems, cost overruns and a lack of financial returns. Looking at projects that have received government funding (almost all of it granted after 2008), 45% of that funding went to projects that are no longer operating today.
The US tops the list with US$12 billion in CCS and hydrogen subsidies. According to the study’s figures, Norway has allocated US$6 billion for such purposes, Canada US$3.8 billion, the EU US$3.6 billion and the Netherlands US$2.6 billion.
Together, four countries account for 95% of all carbon capture and hydrogen subsidies. The second question is: how effective is this technology? Here the data compiled by OCI are perhaps even more startling.
The carbon capture projects currently operating worldwide have a capacity of 51 million tonnes a year, which is a little over 0.1% of annual global emissions. Even more troubling is the fact that, after many decades of research, the technology still does not perform as advertised.
Although the industry claims that carbon capture can trap 95% of emissions, the US-based energy think tank (Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, IEEFA) has found that the real figures are far lower. No facility has captured more than 80 percent. In some cases the figure is much lower still. At one plant, for example, the carbon sequestration technology in use cut emissions by only 10 percent.
Another recent example is the Shell project Quest in the province of Alberta, Canada. This project captures CO₂ produced in the manufacture of hydrogen used to refine oil from so-called “tar sands”, a highly energy-intensive and polluting process. The company has received more than US$600 million for it.
The results, however, are disappointing, as only 68 percent of emissions have been captured. Despite this, Greenpeace recently revealed that the oil and gas giant has earned an additional €130 million from the project thanks to a carbon credit agreement with the government of Alberta.
OCI argues that the subsidies will “prolong fossil fuel extraction and boost the industry’s profits” and, in the years ahead, will “divert research and investment” away from proven alternatives such as batteries, wind and solar power. The major oil companies, such as Shell and Exxon, argue that greater investment is needed to develop CCS, and governments appear to have taken that message to heart.
OCI tracks the use of between US$114 billion and US$237 billion in available public funds. Sums of this scale have been reported since 2020. Most of it comes from the US, Canada and European countries.
“We need real climate action, not a fossil fuel bailout,” said OCI on social media.