Trump just blew up the carbon capture con… and the irony is golden

Donald Trump - yes, the bloke who said “the planet could be warming, but it's going to cool at some point” - might’ve just done more for the climate than half the world’s well-meaning pledges. Not intentionally, obviously. But while Britain keeps energy bills hooked to the rollercoaster of gas prices and is pouring £22 billion down the carbon capture drain, Trump’s US has taken an unexpected detour.

This is the same Trump who thinks wind turbines cause cancer and pulled America out of the Paris Agreement. But here’s the thing - sometimes chaos does the right thing by accident. And this week, that chaos came for carbon capture.

Trump just axed $3.7 billion in funding for one of Big Oil’s favourite toys: point-source carbon capture and storage (CCS). These are the magic boxes stuck on smokestacks, claiming to catch carbon before it hits the sky. Sounds great, right? Trouble is, it doesn’t work. And worse - it was never really meant to.

On paper, CCS is pitched as a way to clean up dirty industries like cement and steel. In reality, it’s been a dismal failure. A 2022 report looked at 13 major CCS projects - 10 of them either flopped entirely or delivered well below target. The few that did anything useful? Only managed with eye-watering subsidies.

And that’s the kicker - CCS isn’t just useless, it’s wildly expensive. Nine times more costly than just building renewables. So why does it still exist? Because fossil fuel companies want it to.

This isn't about saving the planet. CCS has been around since the 1970s, originally used to squeeze more oil out of depleted fields. It was called "enhanced oil recovery" - pumping captured CO₂ back into wells to push out every last drop of crude. Slap a green label on it and boom, it’s climate policy.

Today, around 80% of all carbon ever captured has gone straight into this kind of oil-boosting scheme. So let’s not kid ourselves - CCS isn’t about reducing emissions. It’s a fossil fuel enabler. It gives dirty industries a lifeline, keeps their profits flowing, and tricks governments into funding it all.

Even Trump seems to have clocked it. His latest move cuts off CCS subsidies to companies like Calpine, a Fortune 500 fossil fuel giant. They were expecting $540 million to bolt CCS onto their power plants. That’s now gone. Will their electricity be dirtier? Maybe. But it’ll also be pricier - making clean alternatives like wind, solar, and proper green gas more competitive.

Which brings us back to Britain. Our government - newly Labour - plans to spend £21.7 billion building CCS facilities in Merseyside and Teesside. That’s the same tech the US just walked away from. Labour got elected promising cheaper bills and real climate action. CCS doesn’t do either. It locks us into fossil fuels, siphons off public money, and delays the actual transition we need.

We’re being told there’s no cash for the NHS, schools or housing - but apparently, there’s billions spare to bury carbon under the sea in a system that barely works. It’s nonsense. Labour’s "tough choices" need a rethink. This isn’t austerity. It’s idiocy.

Let’s take the Trump warning for what it is - a glaring sign that even the most fossil-friendly administration couldn’t stomach the carbon capture scam. If we’re serious about the climate, it’s time to stop chasing pipe dreams and start backing what we know works: wind, solar, and green gas.

Because unlike CCS, those actually cut emissions… and they don’t come with an oil rig attached :)