Keir Starmer boasts about propping up the fossil fuel industry at PMQs

At Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs), Keir Starmer told Conservative Party leader Rishi Sunak:

I notice… he hasn’t yet welcomed the investment into this country… £22bn on carbon capture

The Labour Party has announced a £21.7bn public investment in ‘carbon capture’, almost three times the amount of public investment issued for the government’s renewable energy- promoting vehicle GB Energy. This demonstrates Starmer’s mismatched priorities.

PMQs: Starmer’s PR for fossil fuel giants

The results are in (not that Starmer announced them at PMQs).

Research shows that carbon capture is little more than a band-aid for a bullet wound when it comes to addressing the climate crisis.

One study showed that a fossil fuel plant implementing either carbon capture and use (CCU) or synthetic direct air carbon capture and use (SDACCU) only reduced each plant’s net emissions by between 10 and 11%.

The author of another report on carbon capture for the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) has said:

Many international bodies and national government are relying on carbon capture in the fossil fuel sector to get to net zero, and it simply won’t work

He further affirmed the initiative “is not a climate solution”. With such conclusions considered, it’s clear that carbon capture is more of a public relations move to give the false impression that fossil fuels are compatible with fixing climate change.

So, Starmer’s quip at PMQs was a similar ploy to Big Tobacco’s response to the world discovering the deeply harmful impact of its product.

As one paper summarised:

The tobacco industry had a playbook, a script, that emphasized personal responsibility, paying scientists who delivered research that instilled doubt, criticizing the “junk” science that found harms associated with smoking, making self-regulatory pledges, lobbying with massive resources to stifle government action, introducing “safer” products, and simultaneously manipulating and denying both the addictive nature of their products and their marketing to children.

Why usher in climate disaster?

One issue zero sum corporate capitalists could have with solar is that it may be too cheap to make much of a profit.

An over abundance of solar energy sent to the grid drives down prices. This is yet another argument for public ownership of such an essential, which would provide cheaper energy to people and businesses across the board, as well as the investment to address climate change. Artificial scarcity to drive profits is again on full display.

Still, it’s hard to determine the psychology of Starmer and co when it comes to ushering in the apocalypse at PMQs.

In a piece for the Sun, the prime minister branded anyone who holds a negative opinion on carbon capture a “drum-banging, finger-wagging extremist”, in an article that sounds Boris Johnson-esque.

But surely the real extremism is relentlessly putting profit before the survival of humanity. Especially as yet another hurricane – Hurricane Milton – rocks the US and millions of people in Florida are forced to evacuate. This comes just after Hurricane Helene and on the back of record breaking climate disasters across the planet.

Not that’s Starmer’s performance at PMQs even began to recognise any of that.

Featured image via Daily Record – YouTube