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Ecology & Environment
Mahesh

13/12/23 19:46 PM IST

What does ‘unabated’ fossil fuels mean ?

In News
  • At this year’s COP climate summit, one phrase that took the centrestage was “unabated” fossil fuels.
  • The phrase is inextricably tied to Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technologies — a hotly debated subject between oil and gas producers, and climate experts. 
Unbated Fossil fuels
  • When it comes to fossil fuels, “unabated” means doing nothing to reduce the carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases that are released from the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas.
  • It refers to the attempts to decrease the release of polluting substances to an acceptable level. However, there isn’t any clarity on what this level is and how to get there. Moreover, there is no international or agreed-upon definition of the two phrases.
  • The unabated fossil fuels are those “without interventions that substantially reduce” greenhouse gas emissions.
  • That would mean capturing at least 90% of CO2 from power plants, or up to 80% of the methane that leaks during energy production and transport.
Significance
  • In its report, Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said power and industrial plants that are equipped with modern CCS technologies capture around 90% of the CO2.
  • A 2022 study by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) — a global think tank that examines issues related to energy markets, trends, and policies — found that most of the 13 flagship CCS projects worldwide that it analysed have either underperformed or failed entirely.
  • A Germany-based climate science and policy institute, revealed that reliance on CCS could release an extra 86 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere between 2020 and 2050.
  • If carbon capture rates only reach 50% rather than 95%, and upstream methane emissions are not reduced to low levels, this would pump 86 billion tonnes of GHG (greenhouse gases) into the atmosphere – equivalent to more than double the global CO2 emissions in 2023.
  • CCS technologies are also very expensive. It’s cheaper to shut down a coal plant and replace it with some combination of wind, solar and batteries in comparison to attaching a carbon capture device to the plant.
Issues
  • Many climate vulnerable nations and experts are concerned that this would allow countries and fossil fuel companies to continue to burn coal as long as they capture the emissions and store it underground.
  • The false promises of ‘abated’ fossil fuels risks climate finance being funnelled to fossil projects, particularly oil and gas, and will greenwash the ‘unabatable’ emissions from their final use, which account for 90% of fossil oil and gas emissions.
Source- Indian Express

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