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The Broken Greenwashing Technology Undermining COP28

Protecting profits and share prices with pseudoscience and bad economics.

Will Lockett

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Published in

Predict

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7 min read

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2 days ago

Sometimes, a turn of phrase makes all the difference. The sentence “Let’s eat, Grandma” and “Let’s eat Grandma” have very different meanings. If you pay attention to COP28, you will catch a similar spin. Rather than calling for the phase-out of fossil fuels, which all respected climate studies and climate bodies agree is essential to save the planet, the COP28 President Al Jaber and his oil company cohorts are calling for the “phase-out of fossil fuel emissions.” It sounds and feels similar at first glance, but dig a little deeper, and it’s just as morally corrupt as cannibalising an older relative. You see, they want to continue to pump out black gold and keep the status quo, global influence and wealth of oil nations, oil companies, and oil executives like Al Jaber, but offset the planet-wrecking emissions with CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage that isn’t naturally derived). But can CCS really do this? Or is this a thinly veiled bit of propaganda?

Before we dig into the number here, I must first address that CCS itself isn’t necessarily a broken or corrupt technology. In fact, it will play a vital role in our path to net-zero. The IEA states that CCS needs to capture approximately 1.5 Giga tons of CO2 per year by 2030 and 6 Giga tons by 2050 in order for us to reach net-zero. The problem comes in its application. In almost every viable net-zero pathway, CCS is only used to offset emissions from industries that are essential and difficult to decarbonise, such as chemical and cement production. It is never linked to oil production, and there is a very good reason for that, which we will come onto in a minute.

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Despite the science pointing to CCS not being viable for the continued use of oil, that hasn’t stopped many from pushing it over the years. This push has reached a crescendo at COP28. You see, the carbon budget of the planet (how much extra carbon dioxide it can take before we break our climate goals) is nearly all used up. In other words, if we want to avoid the global catastrophe of unbridled climate change, we need to…