Carbon Capture and Storage

Combined with rapid emissions reductions, particularly the closure of all European coal plants by 2030, carbon capture and storage (CCS) is essential to meet the EU and UK’s emission reductions targets. This is supported by analysis from organisations including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the International Energy Agency and the UK Committee on Climate Change: without very rapid emissions reductions and CCS, we can’t meet the Paris Agreement.

Many industrial sectors like steel and cement produce CO₂ as part of the manufacturing process, and so have limited options to reduce their emissions. To keep building the low-carbon society, CCS is essential for industry.

In the UK, gas power generation will continue to fall as it is undercut by growth in low-carbon power, but we do not expect it to be phased-out immediately. For climate targets to be met, any gas power must have emissions down from ~450gCO₂/kWh to 50-100gCO₂/kWh by 2030, and therefore CCS must play a role. For heat, low-carbon solutions are further off, and so we support investigating hydrogen and CCS.

The EU carbon price will not be enough to deliver commercial CCS projects and therefore there will need to be additional support provided at the EU and Member State level.

Sandbag is working with other NGOs, academia and industry to:

• examine how CCS can be brought forward in Europe through a ‘hubs and cluster approach’, bringing CO₂ emissions from different industries and safely storing it offshore;
• consider how CCS can be sustainably financed, and the role Government needs to play;
• support the development of a coalition of CCS leaders and champions to make CCS – for industry and negative emissions – a reality;
• influence the UK Government to follow many of the recommendations in Lord Oxburgh’s September 2016 report “Lowest Cost Decarbonisation for the UK: The Critical Role of CCS”

Sandbag also provides the Secretariat for the UK All Party Parliamentary Group on CCS, with the CCSA.