On July 19th, over 500 organizations across the United States in Canada expressed deep concerns about the US and Canadian governments’ support for carbon capture and storage (CCS) and carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) technologies in an open letter to policymakers in the United States and Canada. The letter’s key messages and demands were published as full-page advertisements in The Washington Post and Ottawa’s Hill Times newspapers.
Despite occupying center stage in the “net-zero” climate plans trumpeted by the United States and Canada at the Leaders’ Summit on Climate, government spending programs, and bills pending before Congress and Parliament, carbon capture is not a climate solution. On the contrary, investing in carbon capture delays the needed transition away from fossil fuels and other combustible energy sources. It poses significant new environmental, health, and safety risks, particularly to Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities already overburdened by industrial pollution, dispossession, and the impacts of climate change.
Upon the letter’s release, leaders from several signatory organizations made the following statements:
Center for International Environmental Law
“CCS is life support for the fossil fuel industry — and a death sentence for the planet. We need to ditch fossil fuels, not ‘fix’ them with technologies that are dangerous, costly, unproven at scale, and at odds with environmental justice. Rather than bankroll the buildout of massive and risky CCS infrastructure on top of polluting industries, policymakers should finance the future, by replacing fossil fuels with renewables and creating sustainable jobs.” — Nikki Reisch, Director of the Climate & Energy Program
Environmental Defence Canada
“Carbon capture is being used as a Trojan horse by oil and gas executives to continue, and even expand, fossil fuel production. It’s a dangerous distraction driven by the same polluters who created the climate emergency. The Government of Canada should not use any kind of financial support or tax incentive to prop up false climate solutions that only serve to delay the necessary transition off of fossil fuels. Instead, we should be focused on real climate solutions including renewable energy and energy efficiency that are job-creating, safe, affordable and ready to be deployed.” — Julia Levin, Senior Climate and Energy Program Manager
Institute for Policy Studies
“Carbon capture is an unproven technology, and there’s no certainty it will ever be economically feasible. It is downright dangerous to pin our hopes on such a speculative technology to address the dire climate emergency humanity already faces. The U.S. government should stop incentivizing this technology through the tax code, or funding a buildout of carbon capture infrastructure through the various infrastructure proposals under consideration.” — Basav Sen, Climate Policy Director
Global Witness
“It’s simple: the world cannot meet its climate targets relying on carbon capture. The majority of CCS that exists is being used to extract more oil, ultimately driving more climate pollution. There is only one winner when it comes to these unproven and costly technologies: fossil fuel companies, who are trying to cash in on the climate emergency while being propped up with government handouts. The Biden administration must say enough is enough, and prioritize real climate solutions, good green jobs, and the health of our communities over the interests of polluters’ profits.” — Zorka Milin, Senior Policy Advisor
Gulf Coast Center for Law & Policy
“Industrial carbon capture utilization and storage is a false solution to this global climate crisis. Once again, Black, Indigenous and poor communities will be sacrificed just to ensure profit for polluting industries. We must reset our priorities to put people before profit. Let’s choose to use this moment to put people to work toward a healthy, safe and equitable future.” — Colette Pichon Battle, Executive Director of the Gulf Coast Center for Law & Policy and National Lead for the Red, Black & Green New Deal at the Movement for Black Lives.
Food & Water Watch
“Incentivizing carbon capture is simply throwing a lifeline to the fossil fuel industry, when we need to be throwing a lifeline to the planet. The US government has already spent billions of dollars on carbon capture to no end. Continuing to do so is throwing good money after bad; diverting resources that could be put to use actually confronting our climate crisis. We demand Congress to end support of carbon capture and invest in truly renewable energy.” — Mitch Jones, Policy Director
Friends of the Earth, US
“Why are Senate Democrats putting Big Oil talking points into policy at the expense of frontline communities already overburdened with pollution?” said Sarah Lutz, Climate Campaigner. “When it comes to CCS and the harms that would result from this polluter gimmick, the Administration should heed the recommendations from its own White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council.”
Partnership for Policy Integrity
“We can’t burn our way out of the climate crisis. CCS technologies are being touted as a magic bullet for capturing the carbon from burning any kind of fuel – including woody biomass. This ignores the other harmful health and environmental impacts along every step of the fuel production chain, particularly in low-income communities of color where wood pellet production facilities and biomass power plants are disproportionately sited. There is a much better way of capturing carbon and effectively storing it while safeguarding the health of our communities – it’s called letting our forests grow.” — Laura Haight, U.S. Policy Director
Indigenous Environmental Network
“Driving up more funding for carbon capture technology is a subsidy for the fossil fuel industry. Oil, coal and gas will use these funds to build out more pipelines and concentrate fossil fuel pollution on already impacted Indigenous nations and environmental justice communities. Billions of dollars for carbon capture essentially redirects money away from renewable energy like solar and wind. We do not have time and money to waste on more questionable carbon capture infrastructure.” — Tom Goldtooth, Executive Director
Center for Biological Diversity
“Promoting dangerous carbon capture and storage is just one more way a dying fossil fuel industry is trying to save itself at the expense of our climate and communities. We don’t have time or money to waste on fossil fuel deception in a climate emergency. Instead of propping up dirty energy, we need to focus on proven clean energy solutions like solar and wind.” – Victoria Bogdan Tejeda, Staff Attorney
Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition (OVEC)
“Carbon capture technology is still in the early stages of development and not at a scale necessary to curtail the climate crisis. It is being used by industry and governments as a diversion to avoid addressing the climate crisis in a timely way using proven green technology.” — Dr. Randi Pokladnik, volunteer
GreenLatinos
“Carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies are false solutions that perpetuate and exacerbate existing burdens for frontline communities. They enable the perpetuation of toxic emissions along with very real potential risks of environmental damage is a glaring red flag for lawmakers. For Latino/a/x and other disproportionately pollution burdened communities, continued investment in carbon capture technology and subsidies amounts to a continuation of a long history of environmental injustice. We call on Congress to stop investing in CCS and instead focus investments on energy efficiency and renewables that facilitate a transition to a lower carbon and pollution-free future.” — Lydia Cardona, Climate and Clean Air Program Manager
New York Lawyers for the Public Interest
“The climate crisis is upon us, it’s impacting every facet of our lives as well as taking far too many lives in its perilous process. Unfortunately, far too many of our lawmakers have become ensorcelled with profligate and unproven mechanisms to address the climate crisis including so-called carbon capture technology. These false solutions are the latest climate disinformation campaign by fossil fuel cartels and their political acolytes to beguile the people at a time when we need to scale up and scale out proven solutions rooted in frontline and Indigenous wisdom. Worse yet, these lawmakers, including Administrator McCarthy, are ignoring the voices and recommendations of leading Environmental Justice practitioners, including those who sit on the President’s White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council, who have stated emphatically that they don’t want these false solutions in their communities. It must, therefore, be stated lucidly that support for CCS is an exacerbation of environmental racism, an affront on Tribal/Indigenous sovereignty, and nothing more than a perverse lifeline to industries that profit off of death and calamity.” — Anthony Rogers Wright, Director of Environmental Justice
Climate Justice Alliance
“False promises abound as big business salivates over the money to be made in appearing to care about the climate crisis that they created. The push for Carbon Capture and Storage is just another example of corporate controlled mechanisms being promoted as solutions when they actually cause harm to communities and the planet and have not been proven to do what needs to be done to address climate change–reduce emissions at source. If the fossil fuel and gas industries really want to atone for their sins they should immediately abandon this market- based scheme and fund truly renewable and regenerative community controlled approaches to a Just Transition, not ones that sacrifice frontline communities, yet again.”
Oil Change International
“Carbon capture and storage isn’t just a colossal waste of money and an environmental justice disaster — it’s a lifeline to the fossil fuel industry and politicians unwilling to stand up to Big Oil and Gas. The desperate focus on false solutions like CCS is a dangerous distraction from the critical work of ending fossil fuel subsidies and winding down the fossil fuel era with a just transition.” — Collin Rees, Senior Campaigner
Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition
“While low-income communities and communities of color face the brunt of the climate crisis, the U.S government is trying to provide subsidies and incentives for false solutions like Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) projects. Detroit just experienced historic rainfall leaving many people with flooded basements, power and broadband outages, and water contamination. We need climate reparations and direct community investments in climate resilient infrastructure, not false solutions that benefit corporations and burden our communities. CCS allows the fossil fuel industry to continue polluting our neighborhoods while falsely claiming to be reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition stands for the health of people and the planet and against corporate greenwashing.” — Juan Jhong-Chung, Policy Associate
Waterkeeper Alliance
Carbon capture and storage is a pipe(line) dream for the fossil fuel industry. They would obtain further subsidies for polluting our air, water and communities and also get to greenwash their image,” said Chris Wilke of Waterkeeper Alliance. “Not only is this unproven technology unlikely to lead to effective progress toward reducing carbon in the atmosphere, it also represents a false solution that risks squandering this important moment while we still have a real chance at staving off the worst impacts of climate change.” — Chris Wilke, Global Advocacy Manager
Catholic Network.US
“As Catholics we are pro-life for all life and are not for false solutions that send more money to fossil fuel companies and the wealthiest in the guise of CCS, which will be an expensive failure. The opportunity cost is too high.” — Marie Venner, Chair