Source · Select Committees · Environmental Audit Committee
Recommendation 46
46
Accepted
Paragraph: 220
Ensure full lifecycle emissions from UK BECCS facilities become carbon neutral within climate targets.
Conclusion
We echo and endorse the recommendation of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, in its recent report on Decarbonisation of the power sector, that the full lifecycle emissions from BECCS facilities in the UK should be made carbon neutral within a timeframe compatible with the UK’s climate targets.
Government Response Summary
The government commits to developing a BECCS policy ensuring net-negative emissions based on full lifecycle assessment, outlining principles for deployment and confirming criteria for robust negative emissions.
Paragraph Reference:
220
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
Government has committed to developing a bioenergy with carbon dioxide capture and storage (BECCS) policy that ensures that only sustainable biomass is used in BECCS and that BECCS delivers genuine net-negative emissions. The Biomass Strategy set out principles for BECCS deployment, which are designed to reflect both the government’s wider approach to engineered removal technologies and the need to maintain strict sustainability standards for BECCS as are used in existing bioenergy support schemes. These principles include the need to ensure that support should only be for BECCS systems that deliver net greenhouse gas removal (GGRs) based on a full life cycle assessment irrespective of where in the supply chain emissions occur. Government is committed to ensuring that all GGRs, including BECCS, provide measurable and verifiable removals of CO2 from the atmosphere. This may include setting requirements to limit the level of supply chain emissions to ensure the technologies achieve a minimum level of negative emissions. As part of the GGR Business model Consultation response, we confirmed our criteria for defining a robust ‘negative emission’. These include requiring removals to be net negative, i.e., more carbon is removed from the atmosphere than is generated in a GGR process; CO2 must be captured directly from the atmosphere or seawater; and the removed carbon must be contained in a highly durable store.