Campaigners are calling on the chancellor to slash the government's £24bn spending plans for carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology, arguing the money would be better spent on schemes that can reliably cut emissions and reduce energy bills. The environmentalist Chris Packham, leading the appeal ahead of this week's Budget, said the government's support for CCS is a "national embarrassment" and urged ministers to redirect funding towards proven climate solutions that help households.
Packham described carbon capture as a "tech fairytale" and said it was wrong that the UK is now pumping more taxpayer money into the technology than the US, the EU, Norway and Japan combined. He criticised the government's support for a series of CCS projects developed by major oil companies, including BP and the Norwegian state oil company Equinor. The intervention comes as the government reportedly plans to reduce grants available to households wanting to replace gas boilers with electric heat pumps, a shift considered crucial to cutting carbon emissions from building heating, which accounts for around a fifth of the UK's total greenhouse gas emissions.
The concerns centre on the technology's track record. Although carbon capture has worked successfully in some instances, many high-cost projects have struggled to progress and carbon savings have frequently proved far lower than expected. Green groups worry the technology has been promoted by fossil fuel companies to extend the use of fossil fuels. Aled Dilwyn Fisher, a senior researcher at Oil Change International, said cutting support for proven climate solutions while continuing to fund unreliable carbon capture would be counterproductive, adding the Budget should direct public money towards solutions that help cut people's energy bills.
The UK's first CCS projects are under way at the East Coast Cluster near Teesside and Humberside, and at the HyNet Cluster near Merseyside and north Wales. The second phase includes £200m for the Acorn project in Aberdeenshire, alongside £80m from the Scottish government. However, Martin McCluskey, the parliamentary undersecretary at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, said fiscal pressures may require decisions on the pace of industry development, despite the government remaining committed to carbon capture.
The Carbon Capture and Storage Association defended the investment, saying the UK's first projects have already awarded more than £4bn in supply-chain contracts supporting about 350 UK companies and 5,500 construction jobs. Mark Sommerfeld, the association's UK director, warned that pulling back now would undermine investor confidence and risk leaving infrastructure underused. He called on the Budget to honour existing commitments to turn current progress into lasting growth and energy security.