Carbon capture and hydrogen ‘essential’ to achieve UK’s net-zero commitments

The Climate Change Committee (CCC), an independent adviser to the UK government on tackling climate change, has published its 7th carbon budget advice, which recommends the target for the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions for the five-year period from 2038 to 2042. The suggested limit is 535 million tonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions (MtCO₂e), which is significantly lower than the target of 965 MtCO₂e for 2033-37.

The CCC said that this would be an “ambitious” target, reflecting the importance of the task, but a deliverable one, provided action is taken rapidly. CCS and low-carbon fuels, such as hydrogen, have been underlined as one of the five routes for achieving CCC’s recommended target, along with electricity, nature, engineered removals and demand. Emphasising the important role of CCS, the CCC said in its report that it “cannot see a route to net zero that does not include CCS”.

Nick McDonald of Pinsent Masons said that the CCC’s conclusions continue to cement the CCS sector’s necessary role in reducing UK emissions.

“Whilst CCS and low carbon fuels’ roles in some sectors is identified as being relatively small, they are nevertheless essential, and ‘small’ needs to be seen in context,” he said. “The identified levels of capture and storage of CO₂ required to achieve the newly recommended carbon budget are large, and given the long lead-in times for these projects, the government will need to keep up or in fact increase momentum.”

“A small role also does not suggest a lack of importance. For instance, power CCS and hydrogen-fired electricity generation at scale are critical to allow the massive increase in renewables that is envisaged. The urgent importance of that is recognised in the energy National Policy Statements,” he said.

The CCC’s latest report predicts that by 2040 hydrogen will play a “small but important role”, particularly in industrial sectors such as ceramics and chemical production which may find it hard to electrify. Meanwhile, CCS is expected to be used in industrial subsectors with process emissions for which few alternatives are available. For example, CCS can be deployed in the chemicals and cement and lime industries.

CCS is also used, alongside hydrogen, to enable long-term storable, dispatchable power in the electricity supply sector, in manufacturing low-carbon hydrogen, and to underpin engineered removals of greenhouse gases.

Stacey Collins of Pinsent Masons agreed that developing the UK’s CCS and low-carbon hydrogen capabilities is essential to the government’s ability to comply with its legal net-zero commitments, but he added that clear policies from the government are needed urgently.

“There are many CCS and low-carbon hydrogen projects across the UK that are continuing to be developed, but whether that continues is inevitably sensitive to government market signals. Many will be looking to see how the UK responds to the CCC’s budget, and how much money is allocated to this sector in the forthcoming Comprehensive Spending Review. We quickly need to see a proper long-term vision and policy commitment from the government to encourage continued investment. 2025 is becoming a make-or-break year for UK if it wants to be a world-leader in these globally attractive technologies,” said Collins.

The CCC’s report also highlighted potential international opportunities for the UK’s CCS and low carbon hydrogen sector, as the UK has access to high-quality permanent geological storage sites in the North Sea.

“The CCC’s report focuses, as it must, on what it considers is required to enable the country to meet its interim and 2050 emissions targets. CCS and low-carbon hydrogen also represent potentially significant international markets, with the UK very well placed to provide CO₂ storage facilities for itself and other countries. That is a major opportunity for the UK and needs to be an enabler of swifter roll-out and expansion of CCS here,” said McDonald.