This will be Keir Starmer’s HS2: a hugely expensive scheme that will either be abandoned, scaled back or require massive extra funding to continue, after many billions have been spent. The government’s plan for carbon capture and storage (CCS) – catching carbon dioxide from major industry and pumping it into rocks under the North Sea – is a fossil fuel-driven boondoggle that will accelerate climate breakdown. Its ticket price of £21.7bn is just the beginning of a phenomenal fiscal nightmare.
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An analysis by Oxford University’s Smith School shows that a heavy reliance on CCS massively increases the costs of cutting emissions. By contrast to other technologies such as solar, wind and batteries, its costs have not fallen at all in 40 years. When I asked the government what guarantee it could provide that construction costs would be capped at £21.7bn, it gave me a woolly answer about “value for money”, but no such reassurance.
And this is just the start of it. Buried in an obscure ancillary document is a government commitment to pay a “premium” for the hydrogen component of the CCS programme for 15 years. How much will the total cost of this be? Again, no clear answer. Cutting cost-effective measures in favour of an open-ended, staggeringly expensive programme is the very definition of fiscal irresponsibility.
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Starmer campaigned on a platform of “change”. But there has been no change from this demented Tory policy, no change in the influence of the fossil fuel industry, no change in the perverse justifications. And, I suspect, there will be no change from £50bnfor this profligate CCS scheme.
The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, talks of a fiscal “black hole” of £21.9bn. But this is a real black hole: a long tunnel into the rocks, down which £21.7bn and more will be poured. A more reliable and cost-effective means of sequestering carbon would be to bundle up the money (roughly 1,100 tonnes in £20 notes) and shove it down the pipe.
An IDF spokesman falsely claims Hamas has a command centre under Gaza’s largest hospital. (Photo: IDF)
Britain secretly advised the Israeli military on psychological warfare techniques, Declassified has found.
Leaked documents reveal how the British army’s 77th brigade discussed strategy and tactics with the Israel Defence Forces (IDF).
The 77th brigade uses psychological operations and social media to help fight wars “in the information age”.
It specialises in “non-lethal forms of psychological warfare” such as cyber-attacks, propaganda activities, and counter-insurgency operations online.
Israel’s own information operations have involved using fabricated videos and fake social media accounts to defend the bombing of Gaza.
Two exchanges with the IDF took place at the 77th brigade’s barracks in Hermitage, Berkshire, between 2018-19.
Leaked documents about the encounters originate from a hack of the IDF by a group called “Anonymous for Justice”. The dataset was subsequently published by Distributed Denial of Secrets.
Although some of the documents reference “secret” matters, there is strong public interest in reporting on their contents.
Israel is being investigated by international courts for genocide and war crimes in Gaza, while the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) refuses to answer freedom of information requests or parliamentary questions about its military assistance to Israel.
Professor Paul Rogers, an honorary fellow of the Joint Services Command and Staff College, commented: “This is a highly significant revelation that shows the extent of high level links between Israeli and British counter-insurgency and psychological warfare operators – and, as ever, the need for greater transparency from the military right across the board”.
An MoD spokesperson said: “We regularly conduct non-operational defence engagements at staff level with partners across the globe. All engagement focuses on best practices and is in compliance with International Humanitarian Law”.
The department refused to clarify whether psychological warfare collaboration with Israel was ongoing.
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Zionist Keir Starmer is quoted “I support Zionism without qualification.” He’s asked whether that means that he supports Zionism under all circumstances, whatever Zionists do.UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy says that UK is suspeding 30 of 350 arms licences to Israel. He also confirms the UK government’s support for Israel’s Gaza genocide.Vote For Genocide Vote Labour.
Britain’s Labour government has ordered 100 spy flights over Gaza to aid Israeli intelligence, it can be revealed.
This amounts to an average of more than one a day since Keir Starmer became prime minister on July 5.
Starmer’s administration suspended 30 arms export licences for Israel last month, citing “a clear risk” the weapons might be used in a “serious violation” of international law.
But the spy flights, which began in December under the previous Conservative government, have continued apace.
Although the Ministry of Defence (MoD) refused to give details, Declassified independently found the flights departing from Akrotiri – Britain’s sprawling air base on Cyprus – to fly over Gaza on Starmer’s watch.
During Labour’s first full month in office, in August, the Royal Air Force (RAF) flew 42 flights over the devastated Palestinian territory.
The new information is likely to raise further concerns about British complicity in war crimes in Gaza, with pro-Palestine activists protesting outside Akrotiri on Sunday.
International Criminal Court (ICC) chief prosecutor Karim Khan has requested arrest warrants for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defence minister Yoav Gallant.
The World Court is also investigating Israel for what it has called a “plausible” genocide in Gaza.
On Monday evening, as Israel invaded Lebanon, Starmer sent a huge A400M military transport plane from Akrotiri to Tel Aviv. The vehicle can carry 116 fully-equipped soldiers and a 81,600lb payload.
Then on Tuesday evening, the UK dispatched Typhoon fighter jets from Cyprus to defend Israel against missiles from Iran.
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Zionist Keir Starmer is quoted “I support Zionism without qualification.” He’s asked whether that means that he supports Zionism under all circumstances, whatever Zionists do.UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy says that UK is suspeding 30 of 350 arms licences to Israel. He also confirms the UK government’s support for Israel’s Gaza genocide.Vote For Genocide Vote Labour.
The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) refuses to publish a military pact it signed with Israel in December 2020 which could relate to the HEZUK project.
Former British soldier Joe Glenton, who works for campaign group ForcesWatch, told Declassified: “These leaks show once again how deeply entangled the UK is with Israel.
“It has to raise a number of ethical questions given the ongoing genocide in Gaza – and now the assault on Lebanon, itself a UK ally whose army is being trained by British troops”.
He added: “the public urgently need to know if the military and intelligence engagements detailed in these documents, which appear to date back a few years now, are still live programs. Because if they are, British military and intelligence personnel are being put to work supporting a genocidal state”.
The MoD refused to clarify whether HEZUK was ongoing.
A UK government spokesperson said: “We regularly work with partners and allies across the Middle East to contribute to regional security. This includes intelligence sharing, where it benefits our national security, as well as defence industrial collaboration, which supports UK economic growth”.
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Zionist Keir Starmer is quoted “I support Zionism without qualification.” He’s asked whether that means that he supports Zionism under all circumstances, whatever Zionists do.Vote For Genocide Vote Labour.UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy says that UK is suspeding 30 of 350 arms licences to Israel. He also confirms the UK government’s support for Israel’s Gaza genocide.
Britain ended more than 140 years of coal power when it closed its last generator in September.
Coal emits more heat-trapping gas to the atmosphere than any other fossil fuel, so its demise as a source of electricity is an unalloyed good for the climate. Yet, with another announcement a week later, the UK government has helped extend the reign of fossil fuels well into the 21st century.Read more: How mainstream climate science endorsed the fantasy of a global warming time machine
Less than six months from polling day, the UK Labour party (then the official opposition) scrapped a campaign commitment to provide an annual stimulus of £28 billion (US$36.6 billion) for green industries.
Six billion pounds shy of this figure will now be raised over 25 years, Keir Starmer’s Labour government has revealed, but for a specific purpose: carbon capture and storage.
“The technology works by capturing CO₂ as it is being emitted by a power plant or another polluter, then storing it underground,” says Mark Maslin, a professor of natural sciences at UCL.
The Guardian reports that oil companies BP and Equinor will invest in a cluster of carbon capture and storage installations in Teesside, north-east England. Eni, an Italian oil company, is expected to develop sites in north-west England and north Wales. In each case, emissions will probably be pumped via gas pipes beneath the seabed.
Starmer anointed “a new era” for green jobs when announcing this funding, but experts claim he is actually offering symbolic and strategic support to climate-wrecking energy sources that have dominated for centuries.
“The Climate Change Act mandates the UK should achieve net zero emissions by 2050, yet this will be impossible if carbon capture leads to the UK building new gas power stations instead of wind and solar farms.”
Maslin was one of several scientists who wrote to energy secretary Ed Miliband criticising the plans. As he sees it, the government would not fund these projects if it did not see a future for fossil fuels beyond the middle of this century, by which time scientists have said our interference in the climate must end.
The message is clear: expensive imports of natural gas (essentially methane, a potent greenhouse gas) are here to stay. Even successful deployment of carbon scrubbers at the point of burning this gas would not erase its climate impact, Maslin says, as it leaks at all stages of its production and use.
But Maslin also doubts carbon capture and storage can siphon off the emissions of gas-fired power plants without adding to climate change. This is why climate scientists often describe carbon capture and storage as an unproven technology for decarbonising electricity and heavy industry: most of its applications have been in natural gas processing facilities where CO₂ is extracted for commercial uses.
“The track record of adding carbon capture to power plants is much worse, with the vast majority of projects abandoned,” Maslin explains.
More damning still, almost 80% of all the CO₂ captured by existing installations has been reinjected into oil fields – to pump more oil.
Could carbon capture and storage tech turn natural gas into zero-carbon hydrogen, as some hope? Again, Maslin is dubious. Water is a cleaner source for hydrogen and using this fuel to heat homes or decarbonise factories is a second-rate solution compared with renewable electricity, he says.
The fruits of appeasement
Maslin and his co-signatories say that carbon capture and storage should be limited to reducing emissions from existing fossil power plants or steel furnaces while these emission sources are rapidly phased out.
Marc Hudson at the University of Sussex is a historian of climate politics and policy in Australia, the US, UK and internationally. He has encountered policy proposals for carbon capture dating back to the 1970s and in his view, their overwhelming effect has been to prolong the use of fossil fuels by justifying investment in their expansion.
When trying to explain why rational climate policies like the mass insulation of draughty homes tends to lose out to investment in carbon capture and storage, Nils Markusson, a lecturer in environmental politics at Lancaster University, found something similar:
In other words, appeasing the fossil fuel industry is a proviso of policies drafted to address climate change. This limitation has also infiltrated scientific assessments of the climate.
A new report shows that “overshoot” scenarios – that is, projections of future climate change which accept the global target of 1.5°C will be at least temporarily breached – are rife in mainstream climate science.
This is despite evidence of the permanent damage such a breach would cause – and our doubtful ability to reverse warming once it has exceeded these dangerous levels using speculative carbon removal technology.
There is not enough land or energy to rapidly restore the carbon we have emitted. Oksana Bali/Shutterstock
What has led us here? Comprehending the climate crisis and its solutions on terms favourable to the fossil fuel industry say Wim Carton and Andreas Malm, political ecologists at Lund University.
“Avoiding climate breakdown demands that we bury the fantasy of overshoot-and-return and with it another illusion as well: that the Paris targets can be met without uprooting the status-quo.
“One limit after the other will be broken unless we manage to strand the necessary fossil assets and curtail opportunities for continuing to profit from oil and gas and coal.”
