The government has pledged nearly £22bn to fund projects that capture greenhouse gases from polluting plants and store them underground, as it races to reach strict climate targets.
The plans are designed to generate private investment and jobs in Merseyside and Teesside, two industry-heavy areas that will be home to the new “carbon capture clusters”.
Energy Security and Net Zero Secretary Ed Miliband told Sky News “today a new era begins”, with a new industry that stops carbon going into the atmosphere providing “good jobs” and shows the government is investing in the country.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the move was “reigniting our industrial heartlands by investing in the industry of the future”, though there are questions about how best to use this expensive technology.
Carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) has been developed to combat climate change.
It captures the planet-warming carbon dioxide released from burning fossil fuels or from heavy industry, and puts it to use or stores it underground.
It is expensive and difficult, but the UK’s climate advisers, the Climate Change Committee (CCC), and United Nations scientists say it is essential to get the world to net zero, which the UK is targeting for 2050.
Net zero means cutting emissions as much as possible and offsetting or capturing the stubborn remaining ones.
Today the government has committed up to £21.7bn over 25 years, to be given in subsidies to sites in the Teesside and Merseyside “clusters” – from 2028.
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It will be split between three projects, which are capturing carbon…
