UK urgently needs a carbon capture strategy, MPs told

The government must develop a carbon capture and storage strategy before the end of 2016 if the UK is to retain the momentum gathered before it cancelled a £1-billion competition into the technology, MPs have been told.

The House of Commons Energy and Climate Change Committee held a hearing on the future of carbon capture and storage in the UK on 20 January, to address the government’s decision to cancel a £1bn scheme shortly before the end of the four-year-long competition.

“There are a set of projects and a set of investors looking to take the technology forward but at the moment they’re waiting to see what the government’s appetite is,” said Luke Warren, chief executive of the Carbon Capture and Storage Association. “A big risk is that we have a drift on policy and we don’t have any progress until the early 2020s, and then don’t have the first projects before the 2030s.”