The Government must rethink its stance on carbon capture - Yorkshire Post Letters

The UK Government must stop ignoring eminent scientists on Carbon Capture and Storage.

In September 2024, scientists and NGOs wrote to Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, urging a halt to the government’s £1bn investment in carbon capture and blue hydrogen. Their concerns - particularly about methane leaks and the UK’s reliance on high-emission liquified natural gas (LNG) imports - were reported in The Guardian.

The response? Silence for five months! When DESNZ minister Sarah Jones finally replied in February 2025, she dodged the key issues, and failed to engage with the scientific evidence.

Even if carbon capture worked flawlessly (and history suggests otherwise), it cannot fix the massive upstream emissions from methane leaks during extraction, transport and processing - especially from US fracked gas.

The UK’s current CCS strategy relies on these imports, yet their high climate impact was ignored in the government’s response.

The UK Supreme Court has ruled that fossil fuel projects must account for their downstream emissions. It is just as vital that upstream emissions - those from leaks and transport - are fully considered. Ignoring this science is reckless.

The government must take expert warnings seriously and rethink the flawed approach to carbon capture that was inherited from the previous Conservative Government.