German carbon capture row heightened by EU’s draft 2040 climate plan

Germany’s upcoming carbon management strategy is being delayed by government divisions on carbon capture and storage (CCS), further exacerbated by a leaked EU climate policy draft for 2040 promoting the controversial technology.

The European Commission is due to present a policy document on 6 February outlining its vision for “industrial carbon management” including controversial technologies like CCS – where CO2 is captured by industrial means and put into long-term storage.

Meanwhile, Berlin is struggling to find a government consensus on its own carbon management strategy. Throughout Green Economy Minister Robert Habeck’s time in charge, his pro-CCS position has faced concerns within the government, and pushback from his party as well as environmental groups. 

Habeck’s goal is to enable the storage of CO2 underground with CCS, as a step towards decarbonising Germany’s heavy industry. With that goal in mind, an alliance of trade unions, NGOs and manufacturers have urged “quick” publication of the strategy in early January.

There is a lot to do. By 2045, Germany may have to sequester and store up to 127 million tonnes of CO2 per year, according to an analysis by researchers at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Research.

But progress has been slow since the appeal was launched in January.

Since then, environmental groups like Greenpeace and BUND have come out in opposition to CCS, contradicting the statement from the alliance and dividing the traditionally united NGO position. “CCS is above all one thing: a child of the oil and gas industry,” the two NGOs argued. The technology began as a fig leaf for oil majors to justify continued expansion.

Within the centre-left SPD party and the Greens, lawmakers opposed to CCS were subject to internal crackdowns from their hierarchy and told to fall in line with the government’s pro-CCS stance.

Aside from internal dissent within the government coalition, two pragmatic questions remain: where should the captured CO2 be stored, and should the government promote CCS applied to gas power plants?

Lisa Badum, the Greens’ climate policy spokesperson, told Handelsblatt that German CO2 should be stored outside Germany – because the country’s tiny slice of the North Sea is already used.

“I don’t think the territory on which the storage facilities are located is decisive,” she said, pointing to plans by Norway and Denmark to store captured CO2 in depleted oil and gas wells. 

Another fight relates to emissions from the power sector.

Initially, the Greens envisioned a 100% climate-neutral electricity system by 2035, with novel hydrogen-powered gas power plants providing backup to intermittent wind and solar.

However, the liberal FDP and conservative parts of the SPD have other ideas. Instead of building novel hydrogen power plants, why not just equip existing gas plants with CCS instead?

“If new power plants have to be built en masse, they should be as climate-friendly as possible,” said Michael Kruse, the FDP’s energy policy spokesperson. “This also includes the use of CCS, as long as these power plants are not fuelled with hydrogen,” he added. 

This is controversial for SPD insiders, who say support for this approach is limited and contradicts the party’s current policy. “The use of CCS in connection with fossil energy generation and supply in Germany must be ruled out,” reads a party paper from 2023. 

What to make of Europe’s upcoming carbon management strategy

The EU’s upcoming CO2 management strategy will propose sequestration of up to 650 million tonnes per annum by 2050 and kick off a controversial debate about the future of the bloc’s emissions trading scheme.

Now, Brussels

The German debate was further thrown into disarray when a leaked European Commission proposal for a 2040 climate target put the use of carbon capture in the energy sector back on the agenda.

According to the draft EU document, “policies should ensure that any remaining fossil fuel combustion will be coupled as soon as possible with carbon capture and storage.”

Michael Bloss, a green EU lawmaker from Germany, said this approach “essentially greenlights the perpetual operation of dirty coal and gas power plants.” 

In Berlin, lawmakers express similar concerns. “In the EU, CCS should then also be applied to fossil energy production … I think that’s something that some people in the room also think is wrong,” said Robin Mesarosch, a SPD lawmaker, at an industry event on 31 January.

LEAK: Brussels eyes 90% climate goal for 2040, 11 EU countries call for ambition

The European Commission is due to table a 90% climate target for 2040, according to a leaked draft, while a coalition of 11 EU countries including France and Germany have issued a letter calling for ambitious targets.

[Edited by Alice Taylor and Frédéric Simon]

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