What are False climate Solutions?
False climate solutions are technological or market based schemes promoted by fossil fuel companies and their political allies to give the appearance of meaningful climate action while actually functioning to delay effective policies that might challenge their power, control, and/or profits. These include the introduction of carbon offsets and carbon credit trading schemes that commodify air, land, and water while failing to reduce emissions, as well as the promotion of unproven technologies like Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) and so-called "Clean" Hydrogen that promises a convenient magical cure that will allow our current dependence on fossil fuels to continue unchanged.
The federal government defines and subsidizes any hydrogen producing less than 2kg CO2 or equivalent climate warming emissions to every 1kg hydrogen produced as "Clean," a dystopian misnomer that props up the fossil fuel industry and delays real climate action. What are the facts?
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Hydrogen produced from methane (grey hydrogen) results in 38% more emissions than simply burning gas for energy.
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Blue hydrogen adds Carbon Capture and Storage to grey to reduce emissions, but still produces 22% more climate warming emissions than burning gas for energy.
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Green hydrogen produced using solar and wind energy to electrolyze water will play a small role in the new energy economy, but it requires too much water to be viable for production in New Mexico.
Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is the process of trapping carbon dioxide (CO2) from pollution at fossil fuel burning facilities, compressing it into a liquid, and pumping it underground for storage or enhanced oil recovery. Carbon Capture and Storage:
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Relies on unproven technologies that have thus far proven unable to capture and store the promised amount of carbon.
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Increases each plants climate changing emissions because it requires significant energy to operate.
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Offers no assurances that captured carbon will remain underground over the long term.
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Offers false promises and a convenient excuse for fossil fuel companies to continue extracting and burning.
Net-Zero is an accounting gimmick that allows corporations to keep polluting by purchasing 'carbon credits,' often at the expense of frontline and indigenous communities where dirty industrial plants are constructed and continue to operate under carbon-credit schemes
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Corporations can claim net zero emissions while continuing to pollute.
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Supposedly Total Emissions – Offset = Net Zero Emissions, but that equation only works if the offset is verifiable and permanent.
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Most offsets, carbon credits and other market based solution schemes fail to reduce actual emissions while providing cover for companies and industries to claim they are taking climate action as they continue doing nothing of significance.
Net-Zero is an accounting gimmick that allows corporations to keep polluting by purchasing 'carbon credits,' often at the expense of frontline and indigenous communities where their dirty industrial plants are constructed.
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Corporations can claim net zero emissions while continuing to pollute.
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Supposedly Total Emissions – Offset = Net Zero Emissions, but that equation only works if the offset is verifiable and permanent.
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Most offsets, carbon credits and other market based solution schemes fail to reduce actual emissions while providing cover for companies and industries to claim they are taking climate action as they continue doing nothing of significance.
The push for Biofuels with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) is based on false assumptions, false accounting, and massive ecosystem destruction. In reality destroying biodiverse ecosystems to grow mono-crops, burning carbon stored in plant matter, and then relying on unproven and expensive carbon capture technology to mitigate the damage results in significant climate warming emissions. Biofuels from purpose-grown biomass:
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Require a huge amount of land and push up the price of food by raising the value of staple crops.
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Harm biodiversity by incentivizing the destruction of natural habitats for the cultivation of mono-crops.
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Require a huge amount of water and commodify the land that indigenous and rural communities depend on for sustenance.
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Distract from and delay investment in real climate solutions - solar, wind and battery storage.