Corporations and lobbyists at Labour conference shred its already floundering climate credentials

Amidst a Labour Party conference awash with warm promises to tackle the climate crisis, a campaign group has exposed the hypocrisy at the heart of the new government’s climate strategy. In particular, it has articulated the folly of fourteen years of financing a fossil fuel industry-favoured so-called climate solution. Specifically, this is the repeated abject failure of carbon capture and storage projects (CCS).

Of course, despite over a decade of falling far short, it hasn’t stopped the new Labour government getting on board with the greenwashing technology.

Labour conference: greenwashing technology for big oil and gas

In a nutshell, CCS is the fossil fuel industry’s latest greenwashing con for continuing on its polluting business-as-usual. Companies capture carbon emissions from large-scale industrial installations, and then pump it underground – for instance, in depleted oil and gas wells.

However, the technology isn’t proven at scale. For example, investigative outlet Desmog previously conducted an analysis of twelve large-scale fossil fuel industry-run CCS plants. Notably, the outlet identified:

a litany of missed carbon capture targets; cost-overruns, and billions of dollars of costs to taxpayers in the form of subsidies

Unsurprisingly, it isn’t the only study to have shown the technology woefully falling short. For instance, the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) also found that ten out of 13 CCS sites it analysed had:

failed or underperformed against their designed capacities, mostly by large margins.

Now, anti-fossil fuel campaign group Oil Change International has revealed the staggering waste of UK taxpayers’ money into this unproven technology.

A trail of broken promises

On Sunday 22 September, Oil Change International published its new report titled:

Funding Failure: The True Cost of Carbon Capture in the UK

It uncovers how the UK government is funneling public money into the most expensive and least effective emissions mitigation option. Moreover, it underscores how this is benefitting the fossil fuel industry, while delaying a just transition to renewable energy.

Crucially the report identified how since 2010, previous Tory-led governments have committed or spent almost £500m on CCS projects.

Yet, despite hundreds of millions in public investment, companies have failed to bring even a single commercial-scale CCS project online in the UK.

It noted how the Tories funnelled £168m of this to two scrapped projects: Peterhead and White Rose.

However, even in the context of these glaring failures, the Tories have continued to develop policies to prop up this bogus technology. Oil Change International found that since 2020, the government has opened the door to £25.26bn for CCS and hydrogen projects.

Industry con at Labour conference again

Oil Change International noted that it was publishing it on the eve of the Labour Party’s annual conference. Therefore, it said that:

This is the first time in 14 years Labour will convene while in power, offering a powerful opportunity to lead on a just transition that is not reliant on failed technology.

On top of this, it pointed out that the £25.6bn could fund pensioners winter fuel allowance twelve times over. As a result, it also argued that:

Prime Minister Keir Starmer cites worsening economic pressures for proposed austerity measures, yet public funds continue to be diverted to carbon capture – propping up a failed technology.

Unsurprisingly however, the fossil fuel-backed CCS industry is already in bed with Labour. In 2023, Desmog revealed how industry trade body the Carbon Capture and Storage Association (CCSA) sponsored 15 events at the two major party’s conferences.

Once again, the CCSA has forked over thousands of pounds to secure itself a stand outside the main hall at this year’s conference. Significantly, as Desmog has highlighted:

Nearly a fifth of the CCSA’s 100 members are oil and gas companies, including BP, Exxon, Shell and Equinor.

What’s more, two major CCS developers are hosting a fringe event. These are Evero – which is developing two CCS projects at Mersey and Ince, and Climeworks, a direct air capture developer. Direct air capture is similar to carbon capture and storage (CCS) in that it removes emissions to be stored underground. However, whereas CCS is tied to industrial plants, DAC captures emissions from the air in any location.

On Tuesday 24 September, the pair are delivering a panel on:

Net zero and beyond – the role of Greenhouse Gas Removals in reversing climate change

Its listing on Labour’s programme states that:

Greenhouse Gas Removals (GGRs) are essential for the UK to achieve net zero. 23 million tons a year of GGRs by 2035 are already baked into the UK’s carbon budgets. But the Committee on Climate Change has recently pointed to ‘significant risks’ with the pace of government action on GGRs to meet this target.

For the UK to become an international leader in this sector, we all need to be more positive about negative emissions – from political leaders to technology developers and corporate GGR purchasers.

Moreover, lobby firm Arden Strategies is hosting this – and it too has a panoply of connections with big oil and gas.

Labour lobbyist in bed with the fossil fuel industry

Former Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy set up the agency. It has a dedicated ‘Labour directorate’ and its specific remit is to help clients “interact with Labour politicians”.

Notably, on its website, it advertises its services helping corporations map to “political stakeholders that share your company’s interests”. In particular, it states how Arden supports:

UK and global corporate clients to navigate and engage with Labour’s policies and politics. We also combine our in-depth knowledge of corporate advisory work with our team’s detailed understanding of how the Labour government operates and thinks.

While Arden does not list its clients, according to Tribune Magazine, it has organised events with British Gas owner Centrica. The multinational energy company holds a stake in oil and gas corporation Spirit Energy, which boasts assets in the North Sea.

In February, Arden was the official partner of a secretive lobbying event Scottish Labour hosted alongside its main party conference. As openDemocracy reported, the national party banned press from the this. Despite this, the independent outlet identified that Centrica’s CEO Chris O’Shea, and Scottish Renewables chief executive Claire Mack appeared on a panel discussion at the event. The pair sat on this alongside UK Labour and Scottish Labour’s net zero chiefs Ed Miliband and Sarah Boyack.

Despite the fact Scottish Renewables focuses on climate green technologies, the company counts oil majors like Shell and Equinor on its board.

In addition, German firm RWE also attended the lobbying affair. While the company’s main focus is on renewables in the UK, in Europe, it operates climate-polluting coal-fired power plants. It also owns one of Scotland’s most polluting industrial sites – Markinch biomass plant. As well as this, it operates Pembrokeshire gas power plant – the UK’s second largest greenhouse gas polluter.

Many of these same companies are coalescing round the unproven CCS technology as a smokescreen to prolong the industry. As well as this, Arden’s Murphy is on the board for the Future Energy Skills Programme coordinated by Centrica and GMB and backed by a who’s who of polluting corporations – which is also promoting CCS.

Subsidising CCS while slashing the winter fuel payment

Ahead of the election, Labour signalled its support for the technology. Its manifesto committed an additional £1bn to it directly.

Oil Change International senior campaigner Rosemary Harris again underscored the galling hypocrisy of this in light of the winter fuel payment cuts. This is especially the case given the government’s justification of clawing back £1.4bn in savings. She said that:

Globally, carbon capture has already had billions of pounds and decades to prove itself and it has failed on every promise.

As Keir Starmer’s government cuts winter fuel payments for vulnerable pensioners with one hand, they are handing out billions in subsidies to the oil and gas industry with the other. It is unfathomable that this government is continuing to spend public money on so-called ‘carbon capture’, when £500 million has already produced nothing.

Instead of propping up Big Oil’s last ditch efforts to maintain their profits, Keir Starmer and the Labour Party should lead a full, fast, fair, and funded phaseout of fossil fuels. We need to see an end to subsidies for the fossil fuel industry, and a real, funded transition plan that works for people and the planet.

Ultimately, another Labour Party conference flush with big polluters shows exactly whose side Starmer’s government is on. It’ll readily extend subsidies and support for an unproven technology acting as a lifeline for climate-wrecking industries – while removing a vital lifeline for the majority of pensioners this winter.

Featured image via the Canary