Fourteen years ago today, governments make their usual big empty promises…
At today’s [7 April] meeting in the United Arab Emirates, Ministers at the Clean Energy Ministerial endorsed recommendations from the Carbon Capture, Use and Storage Action Group chaired by Australia and the UK https://www.freshbusinessthinking.com/purpose/carbon-capture-and-storage-tantalisingly-close/21533.article
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 392ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that CCS had fallen over in both these countries (the fizzling out of the first competition in the UK, “Zerogen” dying in Australia. Meanwhile, the international process was still in pieces after the fiasco in Copenhagen. Still, it doesn’t hurt to make promises you will never be held to, does it?
What I think we can learn from this is that the CCS promises never end.
What happened next CCS got put back together, as a promise, in the UK, in the following years. Then, in 2015 George Osborne (Chancellor) pulled the plug, which lead to the “Kipling Manoeuvre”, as some genius called it.
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.
Also on this day:
April 7, 1995 – First “COP” meeting ends with industrialised nations making promises…
April 7, 2010 – Ziggie tries to sprinkle Stardust – 50 nuclear reactors by 2050 – All Our Yesterdays