(TheConservativeTimes.org) – There are multiple wealthy countries spending billions of dollars worth of taxpayer money on unproven climate solutions, and the United States is spending the most. These climate solutions could actually delay the transition away from fossil fuels and cause more harm than good.
In total, governments have handed out over thirty billion dollars in subsidies for methods like fossil hydrogen and carbon capture over the past forty years. The European Union, plus the United States, Norway, Canada, and the Netherlands, account for ninety-five percent of the public handouts on hydrogen and CCS.
The United States has been the country to spend the most taxpayer dollars with almost twelve billion dollars in direct subsidies. Industry-preferred solutions could play a role in global heating and these solutions are being pushed by wealthy nations at the UN climate summit.
Carbon capture and storage projects consistently fail, underperform, and overspend. Robert Howard, a professor of ecology and environmental biology at Cornell University, said, “The United States and other governments have little to show for these massive investments in carbon capture – none of the demonstration projects have lived up to their initial hype.”
“It is instructive that the industry itself invests very little in carbon capture. This whole enterprise is dependent on government handouts,” he continued.
There have been many critics of CCS and many have said that public money should be spent on proven and less risky solutions instead. Some of these ideas include energy efficiency for buildings, plugging oil well leaks, and renewables that will speed up the transition.
The global engagement director for the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, Harjeet Singh, said, “It is nothing short of a travesty that funds meant to combat climate change are instead bolstering the very industries driving it.”
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