Carbon capture exposes ‘delusional’ climate gamble by Scottish Ministers

• Plans to capture one third of Scottish emissions by 2040 slated as ‘delusional’
• No CCS plant, no planning application & now biggest backer pulls out
• £280mill public money promised to beleaguered Acorn project, with Scot Gov admitting all project costs to fall on public

Climate campaigners have said the withdrawal of the lead partner of the Acorn carbon capture project exposes the Scottish Government’s ‘delusional climate gamble’ of relying on this technology to cut emissions and meet climate commitments.

The Scottish Government recently published a Climate Plan which is reliant on so-called ‘negative emissions technologies’ to reduce climate emissions by the equivalent of one third of Scotland’s entire climate emissions output today.

By 2036 – 2040, Ministers are claiming these carbon capturing schemes should reduce climate pollution by 12.2 megatonnes of carbon dioxide every year. In 2023, Scotland’s total climate pollution was 39.6 megatonnes of carbon dioxide.

There is no working carbon capture and storage plant in Scotland and no application to build one in the planning system. With the exit of Storegga, the flagship Acorn project has now lost its lead developer and biggest supporter.

Public to bear all the costs of carbon capture

The UK Government recently pledged £200million to the scheme and the Scottish Government promised over £80million to the flailing Acorn project. The draft Climate Plan explicitly says “All costs from negative emissions technologies are expected to fall on government”.

Climate campaigners have huge doubts about viability of carbon capture, highlighting how projects around the world have been beset by decades of failures and delays. The world’s largest carbon capture project in Australia in the Gorgon gas fields was recently revealed to be capturing just 2.66% of the emissions it produces.

Friends of the Earth Scotland oil and gas campaigns manager Rosie Hampton commented,  
“It looks like Scottish Ministers’ enormous climate gamble with carbon capture is already a losing one.

“It is frankly delusional to think that carbon capture technology, which has no working plant, no planning application and now without its key backer can deliver the level of emissions cuts required in Scotland within a decade.

“The only thing that works with carbon capture is its lobbying operation to persuade gullible politicians. How else can you explain how a technology with decades of failure that has swallowed up billions in public money around the world can be considered part of a plan to cut climate pollution?”

Ministers repeatedly urged to have a ‘Plan B’

When the Scottish Government updated its previous Climate Plan in 2020 Holyrood committees warned Ministers about an over-reliance on CCS technologies urging them to have a ‘Plan B’ in case the technology did not progress. Five years on, there is still no working projects in Scotland and campaigners fear that Ministers are ‘even more reliant on Plan A.’

Scottish Ministers have been urged to reject plans for a Peterhead gas burning power station which would be entirely reliant on the Acorn Project to store any captured pollution. The application recently had to submit a new Environmental Impact Assessment which admitted the pollution would be three times more than the developer’s initial claims.

Hampton continued,

“Ministers have been repeatedly warned about over-reliance on this technology, and urged to come up with a Plan B, but instead they have chosen to double down on their implausible Plan A.”

“The one honest statement about CCS that we’ve seen from the Scottish Government is when it admits that this technology, if it ever worked, would entirely be paid for by the public. It is a climate con designed by fossil fuel companies for their benefit.
 
 “Ministers have refused to see the evidence and change course, but they can start by rejecting the new Peterhead gas burning project which is wholly reliant on carbon capture. A credible climate plan must deliver climate solutions that we know will work today and improve people’s lives, upgrading public transport, insulating homes and creating green jobs in credible industries with a secure future.”