Source: Climate Home News

Excerpt:

The US government has been criticised for plans to hand out up to $500 million to help an oil company suck carbon out of the air in Texas.

The Department of Energy announced it would invest in two direct air capture facilities, which will suck the planet-warming gas out of the atmosphere and store it underground.

One of those facilities will be built by Occidental Petroleum, whose CEO Vicki Hollub said earlier this year that direct air capture will help “preserve our industry” and get more oil out of the ground.

The proper role

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scientists say the world needs to develop some direct air capture to compensate for the emissions of the hardest to clean up sectors.

But IPCC author Glen Peters told Climate Home that Occidental “do not really understand the role of carbon dioxide removal” and Hollub’s views are “not consistent with the science”.

Peters said that “in principle” the US government should not have given Occidental this money, although he questioned how such an exclusion could be justified.

Read more: US sparks controversy by backing oil company’s carbon-sucking plans