Scientists and environmental campaigners have criticised the government’s investment in carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects, saying the technology is unproven and will only extend our reliance on fossil fuels.
On Friday (4 October), the UK government announced it would invest nearly £22bn in CCS projects over the next 25 years.
CCS technology concentrates carbon emissions before they reach the atmosphere and stores them beneath the seabed. It is seen as a way to rapidly tackle existing carbon-intensive industrial sectors.
While it may sound like a viable solution to simply bury carbon emissions underground, the technology does have strong opposition, especially from many scientists and environmental campaigners.
Writing in The Conversation, Mark Maslin, professor of natural sciences at University College London and member of the Climate Crisis Advisory Group, says that the announcement “represents a massive bet on a still unproven technology, and will lock the UK into fossil fuel...