I am uncommitted, but I was puzzled by the vitriolic attack on carbon capture proposals by George Monbiot (Labour’s carbon-capture scheme will be Starmer’s white elephant: a terrible mistake costing billions, 11 October), backed up by a number of readers (Letters, 15 October).
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the UK’s own Climate Change Committee support a crucial role for carbon capture and storage (CCS). The IPCC extends this to the much more expensive direct air carbon capture (DACC), as opposed to retrofitting to capture at the point of combustion. The IPCC and the CCC are serious bodies with access to the best science expertise. Neither is compromised by financial links to fossil lobby groups.
The UK is perfectly capable of screwing up major projects (see HS2) so there are no certainties this won’t happen again, but that concern applies to any of the many major infrastructure or retrofitting projects that we need to get to net zero, including heat pumps and grid expansion. The much harder and costlier option of DACC will certainly be a necessity, as we are already well past what was needed for 1.5C. And no, we can’t do it all through managing land use. If we can’t even do retrofitting or industrial process CCS, what hope for DACC?
The abandonment of earlier CCS projects surely stemmed from the shameful austerity programmes and Tory retreat from Cameron’s “green crap”. Do also look at the September 2023 Royal Society report, which also touches on CCS.
John Rhys
Llandudoch, Pembrokeshire
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