UK spending on ‘fairytale’ carbon capture tech is a national embarrassment, chancellor told

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/oct/27/chris-packham-chancellor-scrap-spending-fairytale-carbon-capture-budget

Chris Packham says £24bn earmarked for projects with ‘ludicrously uncertain results’ should be redirected to help lower bills and cut emissions

Campaigners are calling on the chancellor to cut the government’s £24bn spending plans for “fairytale” carbon capture technologies in favour of funding green schemes that can reliably cut emissions and lower energy bills.

The environmentalist Chris Packham is leading an 11th-hour appeal for the Treasury to use this week’s budget to scale back the government’s “exorbitantly expensive” support for carbon capture, which is now more than the planned spending for the US, the EU, Norway and Japan combined.

He said it was a “national embarrassment” that the government had earmarked £24bn to support a series of carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects developed by big oil companies, including BP and the Norwegian state oil company Equinor, and urged ministers to “put things right”.

“CCS is a tech fairytale,” the naturalist and broadcaster said. “It should be a national embarrassment that the UK is pumping more taxpayer money into it than any other country in the world. This budget is a chance to put things right.”

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Packham called on the government to safeguard funding promises “that empower households to lower bills” rather than “bankrolling exorbitantly expensive projects with ludicrously uncertain results”.

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https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/oct/27/chris-packham-chancellor-scrap-spending-fairytale-carbon-capture-budget

The great carbon capture con: behold the wasted billions Burnham could claw back: George Monbiot

dizzy: It’s totally ridiculous that the government is wasting, throwing away so much money on CCS. It’s fantastic total nonsense promoted by the fossil-fuel industry so that they can carry on polluting.

The government also wastes so much money in other ways subsidising the fossil-fuel industry – an industry that is totally loaded, awash with money profiteering from destroying the planet. This UK government is close to giving away North Sea resources since tax incomes are minimal, almost non-existant. There are so many tax loopholes / subsidies for fossil fuel companies to destroy the planet.