As our window to prevent catastrophic climate impacts narrows, technological fixes like direct air capture (DAC) are gaining dangerous momentum. While pulling pollution out of the atmosphere might sound like a good idea, DAC and other carbon capture schemes are unproven, expensive, and may actually accelerate climate change.
Direct Air Capture: Big Oil’s Latest Smokescreen underscores that DAC will do more harm than good by perpetuating the lifespan of fossil fuel infrastructure and diverting resources away from more effective and proven climate solutions.
The brief takes a closer look at US oil giant Oxy’s plans to make DAC the technology that will preserve the fossil fuel industry for decades to come, a proposal that has caught the attention of many, including COP28 President Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber.
The brief exposes problematic ties between Al Jaber and Oxy, and warns that DAC is a dangerous distraction that props up the fossil fuel industry on the public’s dime.
The brief concludes that governments must focus attention, public funds, and the little time we have on safe, proven, and readily available solutions, including scaling up renewable energies.
Published November 9, 2023