As our window to prevent catastrophic climate impacts narrows, dangerous technological proposals like carbon capture and storage (CCS) and direct air capture (DAC) are gaining momentum.
Pulling carbon pollution out of the air or filtering it out of the smokestack and injecting it underground might sound plausible, but it’s never worked at scale. The fossil fuel industry’s investment in pushing forward these harmful myths that we can filter out carbon pollution is deepening our reliance on fossil fuels, not phasing them out.
Oil and gas companies are promoting CCS and DAC to prolong our dependence on fossil fuels and maintain their grip on the energy market. CIEL and our partners have spearheaded an internationally coordinated effort to debunk and deprioritize these false solutions. We made substantial progress this year as mainstream media coverage of CCS shifted from broad support to heavily critical after the climate talks in Dubai (COP28), with articles calling the technology controversial, unrealistic, and a loophole for continued fossil fuel expansion by the fossil fuel industry.
This shift was particularly noticeable in key fossil fuel media markets — especially Austrialia, Europe, and the US. And it has led to tangible policy shifts within the International Energy Agency and even several governments (from Canada and the US to the Alliance of Small Island States and Colombia).
Three of CIEL’s breaking analyses contributed to this important change in public opinion and policy. First, we exposed the shocking presence of at least 475 pro-CCS lobbyists at COP28 — triple the number of official US delegates. Second, our brief, Direct Air Capture: Big Oil’s Latest Smokescreen, exposed how DAC props up the fossil fuel industry on the public’s dime and COP28 President Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber’s problematic ties to oil
giant Oxy. Third, our report, Deep Trouble: The Risk of Offshore Carbon Capture and Storage, laid out the threats posed by fossil fuel industry plans to store carbon dioxide beneath the ocean floor, highlighting how offshore CCS entrenches fossil fuel dependence and endangers coastal communities and marine environments.
In the United States, CIEL is supporting local efforts to block CCS buildout in the Gulf South, where the industry plans to build primarily in close proximity to Black communities, which would exacerbate existing environmental racism.
In Louisiana, industry-captured state agencies are facing much more public resistance to CCS than anticipated. CIEL continues to support local and grassroots efforts to share analysis, research, and legal strategies to resist carbon pipelines and injection wells in their communities.
This year, we partnered with local advocates to build grassroots power for community meetings, educate journalists and local officials on the risks of CCS, and submit public comments to challenge carbon pipelines and injection wells, including co-mobilizing the submission of over 40,000 comments to the Environmental Protection Agency to challenge state permitting authority for carbon storage injection wells.
And it’s working: no carbon storage injection wells are currently operating in Louisiana.