Will carbon capture save the climate, or just let us keep burning fuel?

In today’s Big Story Podcast, very soon, Canada will introduce legislation to offer massive tax credits for projects that include a significant amount of carbon capture. In theory, this is a good way to make sure new projects don’t add much in emissions. But in practice, most carbon capture projects are used to allow us to keep harvesting fossil fuels, which will then be burned somewhere else, adding to emissions in Canada and beyond.

Dr. Emily Eaton is a professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at the University of Regina. She says carbon capture could be a useful tool if coupled with efforts to decrease emissions, but that it may, in practice, prove to be counterproductive.

“This is sort of the new climate denialism, that is investing in things that appear to be solutions to the problems, while still engaging in the main sources of the carbon emissions in the first place,” says Eaton.

So how does carbon capture technology work? Could it actually help us cut emissions? And why does so much of the discussion of saving the planet these days feel like haggling over bookkeeping?

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