The Oakland Institute exposes another carbon scam. South Pole’s carbon dioxide removal company NextGen has committed to buying fictitious carbon credits from Summit Carbon Solutions

We have to stop burning fossil fuels first, otherwise “carbon dioxide removal will be next to useless”.

PHOTO Credit: pipelinefighters.org

A company called Summit Carbon Solutions is planning to build a US$5.1 billion carbon capture and storage project in the USA. If built, the Midwest Carbon Express, as the project is named, would be the biggest proposed carbon capture and storage project in the world.

Summit Carbon Solutions plans to build 2,000 miles of pipeline to carry CO₂ from 33 biorefineries (mainly ethanol plants) to an underground store in North Dakota. In addition to North Dakota, the pipeline would cross Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, and South Dakota.

The Biden administration supports carbon capture and storage and subsidises it heavily. A 2021, White House report set a target of 65,000 miles of pipelines by 2050.

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act signed in November 2021 provides more than US$8 billion as federal grants, loans, and loan guarantees for carbon storage and pipelines. The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act increases tax credits for CCS projects and makes it easier for projects to qualify for tax credits.

Time magazine described the Inflation Reduction Act as a “bonanza for the carbon capture industry”. Under the Act, the government subsidises carbon capture and storage to the tune of US$85 per tonne.

Of course carbon capture and storage is not a climate solution. Addressing the climate crisis requires leaving fossil fuels in the ground. As climate scientist David Ho explains, we have to dramatically reduce emissions first, otherwise, “carbon dioxide removal will be next to useless”.

In a recent article published in Nature, Ho wrote that,

“We must stop talking about deploying CDR [carbon dioxide removal] as a solution today, when emissions remain high — as if it somehow replaces radical, immediate emission cuts.”

PHOTO Credit: Anthony Arroyo

Carbon dioxide removal credits

Summit Carbon Solutions is also selling carbon dioxide removal credits (CDRs) from its carbon boondoggle.

On 26 April 2023, the company announced that it had signed an agreement to sell CDRs to a company called NextGen CDR Facility AG. Under the deal NextGen will buy a total of 193,125 CDRs from three projects: Summit Carbon Solution’s Midwest Carbon Express; 1PointFive’s direct air capture project in Texas; and Carbo Culture’s biochar project in Finland.

NextGen is a joint venture between South Pole and the Mitsubishi Corporation. Yes, that’s the same Mitsubishi Corporation with “significant investments in the polluting and risky LNG sector,” as shareholder activists pointed out in June 2022.

The company plans to increase production and sales of fossil gas to 20 million tonnes per year by 2030, up from 12 million tonnes in 2021. That’s the exact opposite of what is needed to address the climate crisis.

South Pole is one of the world’s biggest carbon consulting firms. The company ran into a series of scandals recently after it was caught massively inflating the number of carbon credits sold from the Kariba REDD+ Project in Zimbabwe:

NextGen was launched at the 2022 World Economic Forum in Davos. The company aims to sell one million CDRs by 2025.

At the launch, South Pole’s CEO Renat Heuberger explains why his company is moving into carbon dioxide removal credits:

“In the past most projects to reduce carbon emissions were in the space of avoiding carbon. Now we all need avoiding carbon. It’s very important, it’s perhaps the most important thing to do also according to IPCC, but IPCC also says that even if we decarbonise in line with science, we are still not going to meet the 1.5 mark.

“To meet that mark, we need to remove carbon. There is going to be a point where the world actually needs to be negative emissions. Unfortunately, we’re still at the beginning of that journey.”

Heuberger’s use of the IPCC to back his support for carbon dioxide removal is duplicitous. While the IPCC does rely on carbon dioxide removal in its pathways to meet the 1.5°C target, the IPCC also states in its special report on Global Warming of 1.5°C that, “CDR deployed at scale is unproven, and reliance on such technology is a major risk in the ability to limit warming to 1.5°C.”

Needless to say, in his presentation at the launch of NextGen, Heuberger makes no mention of the need to make immediate and dramatic reductions in emissions from burning fossil fuels.

“Spurious” credits

It gets worse, believe it or not.

As the Oakland Institute points out, the carbon dioxide removal credits that Summit Carbon Solutions sold to NextGen “are spurious because they do not represent actual emissions reductions.”

Summit Carbon Solutions has not yet received government approval to begin construction of the Midwest Carbon Express.

In a 2022 report, the Oakland Institute documents the opposition to the project from a broad coalition of Indigenous groups, farmers, and environmentalists. “This makes it uncertain that the pipeline will ever be built, making the credits sold worthless,” the Oakland Institute writes.

Summit Carbon Solutions faces huge obstacles before it can even start construction. Oakland Institute reports that,

Having failed to persuade enough landowners to cede their land, Summit has resorted to eminent domain and legal action. In April 2023, the company filed over 80 lawsuits against South Dakota landowners, having previously sued landowners in Iowa and counties that passed ordinances to impose conditions and safeguards around the pipeline.

78 percent of Iowans reject the use of eminent domain for carbon pipelines. Despite this widespread opposition, legislative efforts to prevent the use of eminent domain have been defeated so far, likely the result of Summit’s lobbying efforts and political connections. The Iowa Utilities Board (IUB) and the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission will hold hearings in the fall of 2023 to determine the granting of permits and eminent domain.

Anuradha Mittal, Executive Director of the Oakland Institute, sums up the problem:

“The deal between NextGen and Summit is deceitful. It generates worthless credits and breathes new life into carbon markets. These markets are designed to enrich the same interests responsible for the climate crisis and allow them to continue polluting. By subsidizing CCS projects, the US government is in effect complicit. There is no time to waste — the Biden administration must put an end to false solutions and take real action to transition away from fossil energy.”

---