Osborne Cuts Climate Diplomat’s funding and scraps CCS

Two bits of good news from the Autumn statement:

Firstly: Ministers have axed the planned £1bn competition to help develop carbon capture and storage – the technology that the fossil fuel industry hoped would help it drastically cut its carbon emissions.

Companies such as the oil giant Shell had hoped to secure hundreds of millions of pounds’ worth of government funding to help develop the technology, which involves trapping the carbon dioxide produced by power stations, trapping it and storing it deep underground before it can reach the atmosphere, writes Kiran Stacey.

Secondly: Ed King writes: The UK’s global network of climate diplomats is facing the chop days before negotiations on a new UN deal to tackle global warming open in Paris.

More than 100 posts are under threat, with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) set for 25-40% resource budget cuts by 2019-20 under a spending review due out on 25 November.

“The rumours – so we have been told – are they are going to axe the climate posts once the COP [Paris climate summit] is over,” said Barry Gardiner, Labour’s shadow climate minister.

A fortnight of talks on a global climate pact kicks off in the French capital on Monday 30 November. Governments hope to sign a deal to limit warming to below 2C on Friday 11 December.

Two other sources with knowledge of the matter have told Climate Home talks on the future of the climate diplomacy network are ongoing.

As Climate Home revealed in 2014, the UK’s core 2011-2013 climate diplomacy budget was slashed 39% from £7.5 million to £4.5m. A freedom of information request showed the office of chief climate diplomat Sir David King was also handed a 10% budget cut up to 2015.