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It’s dangerous to pin our climate hopes on CCS, says ActionAid expert as IEA launches report

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Press release – SPOKESPERSON AVAILABLE

26 September 2023 – For immediate release

It’s dangerous to pin our climate hopes on CCS, says ActionAid expert as IEA launches report

A new report by the International Energy Agency (IEA) on net zero pathways to 1.5°C highlights the need to cut fossil fuels. The report shows that the existing renewable technology can fill the gap if only there is political will. IEA’s analysis also says that carbon capture and storage (CCS) has "underperformed". ActionAid’s climate expert Teresa Anderson comments on the report.

Teresa Anderson, Global Lead on Climate Justice, ActionAid International said:

“As the IEA report shows, carbon capture and storage (CCS) has consistently failed to achieve any of its overblown promises, despite the billions of dollars invested over decades. It’s dangerous to pin climate hopes on a technology with such a poor track record. There is no magical tool around the corner that can justify continued fossil fuel expansion. Instead of throwing good money after bad into the CCS delusion, governments need to fully embrace the sensible and safe approach of phasing out fossil fuels while scaling up renewable energy.”

To contact the ActionAid Press Office email [email protected] or call +44 7586107955.

Notes to editors: ActionAid’s recent report “How the Finance Flows: The banks fuelling the climate crisis” found that in the seven years since the Paris Agreement was signed, banks have provided US$ 370 billion to industrial agriculture corporations operating in the Global South, and US$ 3.2 trillion to fossil fuel corporations operating in the Global South. When taken as an annual average, and compared to the real value of climate finance in 2020, this means that more than 20 times more financing is going to the causes of climate in the Global South, than to the solutions.

About ActionAid

ActionAid is a global federation working with more than 41 million people living in more than 71 of the world’s poorest countries. We want to see a just, fair, and sustainable world, in which everybody enjoys the right to a life of dignity, and freedom from poverty and oppression. We work to achieve social justice and gender equality and to eradicate poverty.