New analysis from InfluenceMap reveals how the oil and gas industry has strategically pushed the UK government to adopt a costly, emissions-intensive energy policy agenda dependent on CCS, diverting policy attention from renewables and battery energy storage which are rapidly falling in cost. The prominent role that CCS has subsequently been given in UK climate policy continues to drive millions in subsidies for oil and gas companies, despite the fact that no CCS plants have yet come into operation.
The report finds that lobbying on CCS in the UK comes almost exclusively from large oil and gas companies such as Shell, BP, Eni, Equinor, and ExxonMobil, and their industry associations, mainly the Carbon Capture and Storage Association (CCSA). In contrast, little engagement was found from representatives of hard-to-abate sectors, such as cement and steel, which will actually need CCS in order to decarbonize at the rate required to limit global warming to 1.5 C according to both the IPCC and the UK Climate Change Committee.
The analysis has found that many of the oil and gas companies that advocate for CCS in the UK have simultaneously raised issues with the technical feasibility and commercial viability of CCS in other countries when faced with near term targets and regulation, calling into question the integrity of industry engagement in the UK.
For example, in 2024 in the US, ExxonMobil claimed to legislators that long-term CO2 storage is “simply unproven”. In Canada, industry feedback to a proposed regulation noted the “hypothetical” nature of CCS and the industry’s unwillingness to invest in expensive and unproven CCS technology. In 2025, in consultation responses, ExxonMobil, Shell, TotalEnergies and the CCSA pushed back against an EU proposal which sought to introduce an obligation for EU-based oil and gas producers to contribute to 50 million tons of CO2 injection capacity by 2030.
Taken together, this seems to reveal a global oil and gas sector strategy that frames CCS as the ‘silver bullet’ to lock in a policy model based primarily on incentives and subsidies without regulatory accountability or science-based emission reductions, whilst simultaneously deterring the transition to a renewables-based energy system.
Additionally, much of the industry lobbying in the last three years has relied on arguments that are misaligned with science-based guidance from the IPCC. The companies and industry associations involved regularly exaggerate the scope, scale, and climate contribution of CCS and promote its use in sectors for which there are easier and cheaper decarbonization pathways, such as home heating and oil refining.
While the research identifies some advocacy around retrofitting existing power plants with CCS, more than half of the gas CCS projects in the industry pipeline (2) are new fossil gas assets. The report demonstrates that, even if working under the optimistic conditions of a 90% capture rate of direct emissions, new fossil fuel infrastructure projects would produce significant emissions. These emissions come predominantly from the upstream extraction, processing, and transport of the fossil gas on which the plants would rely.
In fact, the report estimates that if all proposed new gas plants with CCS were to go ahead, even at a 90% capture rate, they could emit 2.4-5 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2eq) emissions annually, the same as adding 1.3-2.6 million petrol cars per year in the UK3. This estimate could be more than three times higher if these plants use liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply from the US Permian Basin, considering methane’s 20-year global warming potential.
Sofia Basheer, Senior Analyst at InfluenceMap, said:
The oil and gas industry has sought to influence the UK's climate agenda to boost their profits at the expense of credible and affordable solutions—potentially leaving everyone worse off. The industry’s track record for delivery on CCS is poor, despite the millions it has received in subsidies, and this research shows that any new CCS gas plant would be far from net-zero, continuing to contribute to significant emissions over its lifetime.
Kitty Hatchley, Media Manager, InfluenceMap (London)
Email: kitty.hatchley {@} influencemap.org
(1) IPCC 2022 Mitigation of Climate Change, Chapter 6, 'Energy Systems', page 43 (2) https://www.ccsassociation.org/capture-projects/ (3) Based on estimates of residual and upstream emissions for the proposed 6 new gas CCS power plants in the CCSA’s databasehttps://www.ccsassociation.org/capture-projects/) estimated based on the declared power generation capacity (see Appendix).