Big Polluters have captured €17 billion in public subsidies for failed carbon capture technology – because fossil fuel lobbyists are setting the agenda

Brussels, 4 December 2025 – On 8-9 December, the European Commission and its oil company co-host HEREMA will hold the fifth Industrial Carbon Management (ICM) Forum in Athens. As the EU gears up for its annual meeting on carbon capture, new research shows that carbon capture and storage (CCS) has received €17.3 billion in public subsidies from the EU, its member states, and Norway. 

Carbon capture seeks to capture CO2 emissions from sites of pollution and either store them underground or repurpose them. However, CCS has a decades-long history of overpromising and under-delivering, at great expense.3

The ICM Forum has been dominated and steered by the fossil fuel industry, and has shaped EU policy and directed public money towards CCS as a way to lock-in fossil fuels.4 This year’s co-host HEREMA aims to expand oil and gas production, and is facing local resistance over its controversial Prinos CCS site.

ICM Forum working groups influence EU policy by publishing recommendations to the Commission – all are led by fossil fuel industry actors. In the past year, this included six co-chairs and two editors (amongst them Equinor and Shell); these eight fossil fuel entities spend nearly €20 million per year lobbying the EU. 

Major fossil fuel companies active in the ICM Forum benefit from public subsidies to CCS. Equinor, which co-chairs one forum working group, is involved in projects that have received €2.7 billion in public funds, while Shell, co-editor of the same working group’s recent report, is involved in projects that have received about €5 billion.

Myriam Douo, senior campaigner at Oil Change International, said:

“CCS is risky, costly and has failed to deliver for decades. It primarily serves to enable polluting industries to continue business as usual while pocketing subsidies. That’s why fossil fuel lobbyists are pushing for CCS – and the European Commission is recklessly embracing it. But it’s not too late, the EU can still change course and prioritise real solutions to climate change, like energy efficiency and renewables, as part of a just transition away from fossil fuels.”

Rachel Tansey, researcher and campaigner at Corporate Europe Observatory, said:

“Europe is showering public money on a dangerous distraction designed to keep Big Oil and Gas in business. Why? Because it is listening to their lobbyists. Rejecting fossil fuel influence is vital if the EU is to deliver real solutions to the climate crisis instead of delay tactics like carbon capture.”

Notes to the editor:

1. Mapping the money behind carbon capture: Public subsidies and industry ties, https://oilchange.org/publications/mapping-the-money-behind-carbon-capture-public-subsidies-and-industry-ties 
2. The data covers CCS projects and fossil-based hydrogen projects that plan to utilize CCS. For access to Oil Change International’s database of CCS and fossil hydrogen subsidies, please email: [email protected]

• 88% of CCS projects fail, according to a 2024 article in Nature. 
• 90% of planned CSS projects in the power sector were never built, according to a 2021 article in Environmental Research. 
• CCS may be “highly economically damaging,” and cost at least USD 30 trillion more than a pathway based primarily on renewable energy, energy efficiency, and electrification, according to a report from Oxford University’s Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment. 
• CCS can also enable and worsen harm to communities already burdened by fossil fuel infrastructure with increased air pollution, according to an Energy and Environmental Science paper.  
• No CCS project has ever reached its target CO2 capture rate, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, and no existing project has consistently captured more than 80% of carbon.CCS gives the industry a justification to continue developing new fossil-based projects for many years, reinforcing reliance on fossil fuels.

4.  For more information on the ICM Forum (formerly ‘CCUS Forum’) see Corporate Europe Observatory (2024) The Carbon Coup and The Carbon Coup revisited.