In the piece below, the author asks, "Why is the government putting big money behind dubious carbon capture projects that specifically benefit Big Oil and help delay climate action?"

Spoiler: It's capitalism.

You probably already knew that, but the article does a great job of explaining exactly why subsidizing carbon capture is such a disastrous policy choice, and why the Biden administration nevertheless is pouring billions of dollars into it...
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Record heat waves. Widespread fires. Devastating storms. The tragic toll of climate change is becoming more evident every day.

To avoid even more severe impacts in the future, we must quickly and dramatically cut greenhouse gas emissions — largely caused by fossil fuels. Fortunately, the tools we need to cut emissions through energy efficiency, renewable energy, and beyond are growing quickly, becoming better and more affordable over time.

We will also need some “carbon removal” in the future — where we use nature (with trees or soils) or industrial processes to take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, sequester it, and keep it from adding to our climate woes.

In the last few years, more attention has focused on industrial methods, because they can bury carbon in permanent, geologic reservoirs, unlike trees and soils that can burn down or be plowed up. In principle, this makes sense. But in practice, industrial carbon removal is wildly expensive, far too energy and resource intensive, and only removes pathetically small amounts of carbon. It’s nowhere near being a viable solution to climate change.

For the foreseeable future, cutting emissions is the most feasible means of addressing climate change. And whatever carbon removal we might eventually develop should only be used to address the final, hard-to-abate emissions left after fossil fuels are phased out. Most of all, carbon removal should *never* be used as a substitute for cutting emissions, or to help delay phasing out fossil fuels.

So why is the federal government doing exactly the opposite — putting big money behind dubious carbon capture projects, in ways that specifically benefit Big Oil and help delay climate action?
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FULL ARTICLE -- https://globalecoguy.org/stop-giving-big-oil-a-carbon-fig-leaf-a6f49a40851b

#Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #ClimateEmergency #CO2 #Emissions #Capitalism #BusinessAsUsual