If UK Labour scrapped billions for false solutions like CCS and hydrogen, it could fund pensioners’ winter fuel allowance 

C: Rosemary Harris

As the dust settles on the first Labour Party conference with the party in power since 2009, it was far from the celebratory affair one would expect of a party that recently won a staggering majority in the general election.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Prime Minister Keir Starmer tried to sound optimistic about “building a new Britain,” but many felt the policies, such as cutting winter fuel allowance for pensioners, were too reminiscent of the disastrous Conservative years in power.

There are far too many similarities between the two parties. Like repeated Tory scandals, Labour was embroiled in controversies over political gifts and donations in the build-up to the Conference. Labour also has questions to answer over how party donors may be impacting its decisions on climate, which are going against the clear science that over half of fossil fuels in existing fields and mines must stay underground to keep temperature rise below globally agreed limits.

Back in February this year, Rachel Reeves accepted a £10,000 donation from Lord Donoughue, the former chair of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a leading British-based climate denial think tank. The donation came shortly before the Labour Party binned its commitment to spending £28 billion a year on green investment.

Questions remain as to whether such funding sources are influencing the ways Labour plans to address the climate crisis. The party seems intent on pursuing Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS),  a technology that consistently failed to work at scale despite being developed for 50 years.

Carbon capture is the fossil fuel industry’s favorite way to delay climate action, distract from real solutions that would end the fossil fuel era, and boost corporate profits. Although carbon capture projects are failing worldwide, they are being used to justify fossil fuel expansion, and diverting investment from existing and effective alternatives like renewables, energy storage, and energy efficiency.

A new analysis by Oil Change International (OCI) has found that the Conservative government wasted a staggering £500 Million on CCS. Some £168 million was spent on just two projects, Peterhead and White Rose, which were scrapped before ever coming online (there’s even an attempt to bring the Peterhead project back from the grave). The government could have spent this money on doctors or nurses, or even funded the Winter Fuel Allowance to support vulnerable pensioners twelve times over.

Despite hundreds of millions being spent and no commercial projects in operation, a further £25 billion has been promised in new subsidies for CCS and Hydrogen. This is greater than the supposed £22 billion black hole that the previous Conservative Government left the new Labour government. If Labour is looking for a quick fix to find money, they should scrap these wasteful handouts.

Despite evidence of its failure, Labour’s top politicians are in favour of CCS. Chancellor Rachel Reeves is known to be a long-term supporter, calling CCS the “industry of the future.” Reeves backed CCS in her conference speech, stating that Labour would create jobs in “carbon capture and storage, on Teesside, Humberside and right here on Merseyside too.” With 80% of CCS projects worldwide failed or on hold, transitioning to CCS is a gamble workers can’t afford.

Starmer is supportive of CCS too. Just days before the Conference, Starmer and Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, Ed Miliband, met with Eni boss Claudio Descalzi in London to discuss the company’s activities in the UK.

Eni’s CCS initiatives in the UK were discussed at the meeting, including its involvement in the vast Hynet North CCS and blue hydrogen project in the NW of England and Liverpool Bay. Hynet, which has already received  £120.9Mm in government subsidies, has been accused by critics of being an“oil industry swindle.” Its partners include gas transmission company Cadent Gas and chemical giant Ineos.

There is a chance that Hynet and other UK vast CCS and hydrogen projects may end up stranded. Back in May this year, the previous government scrapped plans to test hydrogen in homes. Both Shell and Norwegian company Equinor have also recently scrapped blue hydrogen project in Europe over lack of demand.

Despite this, Hynet’s supporters include Liverpool Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram, who has called himself a “longstanding and passionate advocate of HyNet, for its revolutionary approach to clean, green energy, and for its capacity to protect and create thousands of high-skilled, high-paid jobs across the region.”

Meanwhile, Rotheram has been accepting gifts from Hynet’s partners. Freedom of Information documents reveal that at the Labour Party conference two years ago in Liverpool, Cadent Gas sponsored the drinks reception for Rotheram at the Liverpool Museum.

In an email, the gas company said it was a “great location” to lobby their guests. In a follow-up email to his office, Cadent Gas said, “Steve mentioned he wanted a meeting to discuss Hynet and the next steps and to visit our hydrogen experience centre in Whitby, Ellesmere Port.”

Cadent Gas is back schmoozing Labour politicians at this year’s conference too, sponsoring an event called “The Role of Gas Networks in the UK’s Energy Transition”. It is just one of many events sponsored by oil and gas corporations, including British Gas owner Centrica, OVO Energy, and oil and gas lobby groups Offshore Energies UK, Energy UK, and the Energy Networks Association.

Despite civil society and scientists making clear for years that fossil fuels must end for a livable climate, the oil and gas company events made the desperate case they should be able to continue to burn gas for years to come.

In total, a fifth of all climate events at the Labour conference this year were sponsored by oil and gas-linked companies, according to Global Witness.

Big Oil was also well represented amongst the 100 executives and lobbyists at a business event at the conference, with Exxon and Shell in attendance. Last month, The Guardian – in collaboration with OCI – revealed how ExxonMobil was “chasing billions” in subsidies in the US to promote CCS. The article outlined how the company had successfully managed to shift the policy response to climate change away from wind and solar to CCS. Shell, too, is pursuing CCS.

Oil and gas companies also bought exhibition space, including those pushing false solutions such as Hydrogen UK, Beyond 2050 – a hydrogen lobbying group that has represented BP and British Gas – and the Carbon Capture and Storage Association. Others were pushing Blue Hydrogen:

This deeply dishonest outfit has a stand at the @UKLabour conference. #Bluehydrogen will not 'deliver net zero'.
Its full life-cycle impact is worse than coal for warming.
But the previous Gov rigged the assessment criteria to make it look 'low carbon'.https://t.co/kGDNIpniQ3 pic.twitter.com/GTR3ZpimZ0

— Simon Oldridge (@SiOldridge) September 24, 2024

Rob Noyes, a campaigner for the group Fossil Free Parliament, told Global Witness that party conferences remained a “lion’s den of fossil fuel lobbyists.”

There was push back from scientists and civil society against the CCS lobbyists and industry spin. At the conference, OCI handed out leaflets warning CCS was “BS”.

The fossil fuel industry is greenwashing its way through #LabourConference2024 with distracting fantasies of "carbon capture" instead of ending oil & gas. Our campaigner @HarrisR1992 is there right now, spreading a leaflet (https://t.co/PyEEggWG7O) and the real truth – CCS is BS pic.twitter.com/VvoarKSpAF

— Oil Change International (@PriceofOil) September 23, 2024

Scientists also warned about CCS:

The CCS lobby has a HUGE presence at #LabourConference2024 – with a massive pavilion in the exhibition area, and several events promoting CCS as a miracle cure for the climate crisis. It’s all fossil fuel-funded BS.

Here’s what @KevinClimate had to say about it at: https://t.co/w8fpr2QImw pic.twitter.com/d15tw3ea12

— Fossil Free Parliament (@MP_FossilFree) September 24, 2024

On the final day of the conference, leading climate scientists urged the government to pause investing in CCS and hydrogen and prioritise renewables. “Instead of investing billions in large scale versions of unproven technologies, we urge your Government to prioritise funding for alternative flexibility technologies to enable a more rapid transition to renewables,” they said.

With Big Oil facing a soaring number of climate-focused lawsuits, including many successful claims against misleading advertising, Labour must see through the industry’s greenwash and move forward climate plans that actually work for people and planet.

OCI’s Rosemary Harris, who was at the conference, said: “As Keir Starmer’s government cuts winter fuel payments for vulnerable pensioners with one hand, they are handing out billions in subsidies to the oil and gas industry with the other. It is unfathomable that this government is continuing to spend public money on so-called ‘carbon capture’, when £500 million has already produced nothing.”

Harris added: “Instead of propping up Big Oil’s last ditch efforts to maintain their profits, Keir Starmer and the Labour Party should lead a full, fast, fair, and funded phaseout of fossil fuels. We need to see an end to subsidies for the fossil fuel industry, and a real, funded transition plan that works for people and the planet.”