The UK Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) Authority is considering responses to its consultation of summer last year on the integration of greenhouse gas removals into the UK ETS.

 

In the consultation, the Authority proposes that the capture and use of carbon in short-lived products, such as plastics, does not constitute a negative emission and therefore is not being considered for inclusion as a greenhouse gas removal (GGR). The CIA feels this could represent a big missed opportunity.

If the Authority rewarded the use of captured carbon to make plastic with a credit in the UK ETS, then it would encourage the manufacture of plastics using carbon drawn from the atmosphere over carbon extracted from fossil sources. This carbon could be sourced from biomass or from engineered removals.

At first sight, this appears to be an avoided emission rather than a negative emission. However, with the imminent inclusion of the waste sector in the UK ETS (see link to that consultation), plastics made from carbon drawn down from the atmosphere would then be preferentially sent to permanent storage (i.e. through waste incineration with carbon capture and storage) or back into the economic carbon pool (i.e. through recycling or waste incineration with carbon capture and use).

Where carbon is permanently stored it represents a negative emission. Where carbon is put back into the economy through recycling, it could represent an avoided emission again and again. GGR-to-plastics manufacturing could therefore be a critical enabler of circularity and emission reduction, yet it currently receives no effective Government support in the UK and comes with a green premium that makes it uncompetitive. We therefore ask the Authority to reconsider its proposal to exclude plastics.