A new Biofuelwatch briefing—Distract, Delay, Deceive: Fossil Fuels, Big Tech, and California’s Emerging Carbon Removal Economy—raises alarm bells on how California climate authorities are leaning hard into selling the illusion that climate pollution can be cleaned up after the fact, while simultaneously deprioritizing pursuing emissions reductions at source.
The report closely examines the dynamics surrounding how the California Air Resources Board (CARB), the primary agency responsible for climate policy in the state, is pursuing current rule making for speculative carbon removal technologies on the heels of making dramatic changes to the state’s carbon market, opening the door to the state directly subsidizing a wide array of unproven carbon management technologies.
The expansion of speculative carbon capture technologies as a central pillar to California’s approach to responding to climate change is accompanied by a litany of unresolved questions about real world climate benefits, long-term liability, financial assurances, monitoring, data access, and the consequences of accidents, environmental harms and corporate bankruptcy.
This independent and non-partisan research provides findings that can be used by activists, journalists, decision makers, and the general public to better decipher developments in what is an unprecedented and increasingly dangerous chapter of climate politics in the State of California. The report was made possible due to the support of Global Forest Coalition, Geoengineering Monitor, and the Hands Off Mother Earth Alliance. Independent researcher Dr. Tamra Gilbertson is the report’s principal author.
