Fifteen years ago, on this day, December 1, 2008, the first report of the brand-spanking new “Committee on Climate Change” was released. It fanboys CCS.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 385ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the Committee on Climate Change, which had been formally established by the Climate Change Act, but must have been appointing people, paying people, and generally being underway. This is its first report about reducing carbon emissions. And predictably enough since it’s the middle of the first competition on CCS there is a big fanboy section about carbon capture and storage.
What I think we can learn from this is that CCS is very “logical” within our system, that there is mitigation deterrence to worry about, and that actual saving of carbon dioxide has not happened yet at any meaningful scale. And whether it will be remains to be seen. My money would be on “No”.
The Committee on Climate Change or the Climate Change Committee, as it wants to be called, has continued to produce really useful work ever since, though some (waves at Kevin Anderson) think it should have done much more holding-feet-to-the-fire…
What happened next
The CCS competition collapsed in 2011. Was replaced with another in 2012. It had the plug pulled in 2015. And here we are again.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs..