He said that following David Lammy’s Kew speech last week, in which the foreign secretary, said tackling the climate emergency had to be central to everything the Labour government did, it must now “walk the talk”.
A spokesperson for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said CCUS would “play a vital role in a decarbonised power system” that would “make us less, not more, reliant on natural gas”.
“This technology will boost our energy independence, and the Climate Change Committee describe it as a necessity, not an option for reaching our climate goals.”
The spokesperson added: “Through our national wealth fund, we will support carbon capture and hydrogen to make the UK a world leader in these technologies of the future.”
However, Claire James, from the Campaign against Climate Change, a pressure group that also signed the letter, said Labour had “a great opportunity” to tackle the climate crisis and create jobs by investing in “basic things we know work” such as insulating homes, renewable energy and public transport.
She added: “When it comes to carbon capture and storage, which has a track record of repeated failure, or considering the risks of methane emissions from importing gas to make hydrogen, we can’t see this as a good use of big public subsidies.”
Another signatory, David Cebon, a professor of mechanical engineering at Cambridge University, said the government should be 100% focused on reducing carbon emissions through proven technologies.
He added: “The CCUS projects (inherited from the previous government’s cosy relationship with the fossil fuel industry) will do precisely the opposite. They will lock the UK into significantly higher gas consumption for the next 30-50 years and will increase energy costs, at taxpayers’ expense.”
Cebon said CCUS technology had “a very poor track record for reducing emissions” and came “with significant health, safety and cost risks”.
“The secretary of state should think very carefully before embarking on these projects,” he added.
