As I wrote last week, one of the many side meetings at the Copenhagen climate summit was a small gathering of countries that were plotting to undermine the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism (designed to promote sustainable development) by including the controversial Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology.
If it goes ahead, it would mean that rather than having to support renewable energy projects in developing countries, big polluters could support the building of new coal power stations that capture some of the emissions.
There has been some movement on the issue with a key working group recommending that CCS be kept out of the Clean Development Mechanism, at least for another year. This is a step in the right direction.
According to the announcment on a UNFCCC website:
“Capturing carbon dioxide at coal-fired power plants in order to store in it the ground will not become a measure supported by the UN-backed Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) this year. A committee under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has discussed the issue, but delayed any decisions for summits to come.”
As the name suggests, Carbon Capture and Storage is the wildly expensive and risky idea of capturing carbon emissions from coal power stations and burying them underground.
Most thinking people agree that CCS will be too late, and most likely too expensive to play a serious role in solving climate change.
If CCS from coal plants were to be included under the Clean Development Mechanism, it would divert much needed investment away from renewable energy and encourage the building of new coal power stations that capture only some of their emissions.
The decision to keep CCS out of the CDM would be a welcome reprieve, but there is still a long way to go to level the playing field and make sure that we stop propping up the coal industry. We need to create the energy revolution that we so urgently need.
