Carbon Capture Cash ‘A Fig Leaf’ To Fossil

The federal government will give $1.2 billion to boost direct air carbon capture projects run by Occidental Petroleum and Climeworks in Texas and Louisiana, respectively, DOE announced Friday. The projects would not address the pollution, climate-heating or otherwise, caused by the extraction or combustion of fossil fuels, but would simply suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

“What worries me and a lot of other climate scientists is that it potentially creates a fig leaf for the fossil fuel industry … the idea that we can keep burning stuff and remove it later,” Jonathan Foley, executive director of Project Drawdown, told The Guardian.

“We’ve been trying to fix the oil and gas damage, while at the same time trying to push the transition away from it,” Monique Hardin, of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, told The Guardian. (DOE announcement: The Guardian, CNBC, AP, Axios, The Hill, Bloomberg $, Utility Dive, Washington Examiner, Bloomberg $, LA Times $, Washington Post $, Inside Climate News, Houston Chronicle, New York Times $, Canary Media, Reuters; Community objections: The Guardian)