Make China pay for the UK’s “Carbon Capture” program

The UK Government last week confirmed an eye-catching commitment for ￡20 billion of investment into “Carbon Capture” initiatives, but with the first ￡1 billion still to be allocated and no clear funding strategy, it’s tempting to dismiss this as “political” posturing, rather than a clear climate plan to move the country towards Net Zero.

Carbon capture is a crucial element of Britain’s decarbonisation plans: trapping carbon dioxide emissions as they?are produced from factories or power plants and using them or storing them permanently under the seabed.

To put things in perspective, the Government hopes to be operating 4 “clusters” of extraction, and by 2030 they would extract and dispose of the equivalent of the emissions from the 10-15 million EVs. Given this is equal to the total number of EVs the Government hopes will be driving around the UK by 2030, you can see how Carbon capture is just as key as the much more publicised EV revolution.

The Government has laid out clear plans to “drive” the EV revolution, with highly generous “Salary Sacrifice” leasing schemes delivered by businesses, delivering average tax savings of ￡14,000 compared to private EV lease costs. When this is combined with an average release of ￡10,000 of tied-up personal cash from selling current petrol cars and the move to EVs becomes highly persuasive. The Government plans is fast track the EV swap using tax breaks that are guaranteed via legislation, with the “Benefit in kind tax” (BIK) from having a brand-new green EV only escalating slowly from 2% to a still-low 5% in 2028.

Government legislation also means that all “home chargers” must be time-controlled to allow night-time charging at low rates, whilst the national grid has excess electricity. However, they have missed the obvious opportunity of introducing low night tariffs, during the current period when they have subsidised prices via electricity price caps.

The Government has also laid out a long-term plan to move away from “dirty” electricity generation that burns natural gas, to a target of 70% of production coming from clean solar, wind, and nuclear generation. However, virtually all experts believe this will take far longer than promised and should immediately be combined with “Carbon Capture” programs to remove CO2 emissions from the dirty power stations, while they are still required.

Unfortunately, of all the elements of the “Drive” to NetZero plan, it’s the easier-to-deliver Carbon Capture program, that remains the worst planned or defined.

Carbon extraction needs to be heavily subsidised by the Government, as currently it is cheaper for polluters to pay “pollution” penalties, rather than implement expensive “Carbon Capture” programs. This subsidisation will require extensive Government funding, which in turn will require new taxation revenue to pay for it, but no plans have been announced.

I personally believe the funds should be raised by applying either import taxes or higher VAT charges, to products produced by counties like China that we can easily prove manufacture these goods using “Dirty” electricity, produced by coal or gas power stations.

Charging polluters for “Carbon Capture”, to offset the pollution they emit in their own countries producing goods we buy seems logical, fair, and an action wholly within our control. Maybe if enough countries applied heavier taxes to products from polluting countries, economic grounds would force behavioral change.

However, our own Government needs to get its act together first and make some urgent decisions on which applications by polluters in the planned geographic “Clusters” will be approved. This is the starting point for extraction businesses like HyNet, as they need to know which businesses to connect to their pipelines that will pump the extracted CO2 deep underground in disused natural gas and oil fields in the North Sea.

Bids from polluters have been in for 12 months now but no final selection has been made and no spades have entered the ground.

It would appear that the UK’s route to “Carbon Neutral” status by 2050, can be summarised within 3 key simple action statements.

1.????Electricity Production.?Increase clean energy to 70% and clean up cheaper, but dirtier Gas generated electricity via Carbon Capture.

2.????Drive a EV revolution.?Stop selling I.C.E (Internal Combustion Engine) cars by 2030 and replace them with night-time charging EVs.

3.????Carbon Capture.?Create an active market, by cross-subsidisation using revenues generated by increasing taxes on products from polluting companies.

We need to ensure that as well as “Driving Green” change in the UK, we drag the developed world with us, via a willingness to lead from the front, rather than just assuming we cannot make a difference.

Global changes often come one step at a time, so let’s be first to make a step in the right direction.