A U.N. climate report legitimized carbon capture and storage, suggesting at least 99% of the CO2 would likely remain underground, despite scant empirical evidence.
asserted
% → legitimize → evidence
- Oil Industry Favorite: Fossil fuel companies have identified carbon capture as a climate solution that will allow their industry to survive, and have pushed the U.N. and scientists to study it.
asserted
industry → identify → it
- Pattern of Underperformance: Decades later, major CO2 storage projects have suffered breakdowns, setbacks and cost overruns, while CCS remains central to climate models and policy.
asserted
CCS → suffer → models
In the spring of 2005, the United Nations convened more than 100 of the world’s top scientists in the medieval town of Oviedo, Spain.
asserted
Nations → convene → Oviedo
They were there to finish writing a paradigm-shifting report about a technology that they hoped could help stop climate change.
uncertain
they → finish → change
To celebrate the report’s impending completion, the meeting’s hosts handed out bottles of cava, Spanish sparkling wine, with tongue-in-cheek labels stating that they were to be opened only by those who truly believed it could work.
uncertain
it → celebrate → those
Belief was necessary because the technology — carbon capture and storage, or CCS — had barely been tested.
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technology → test → ?
The idea was simple: strip carbon dioxide from smokestacks before it could flow into the air and warm the planet.
uncertain
it → strip → planet
The experts in Oviedo had stacks of papers proving that parts of the process worked.
asserted
parts → have → process
But major questions remained about how much space exists inside the Earth to store the CO2, how effectively it could be monitored and whether the poisonous, concentrated gas would reliably stay underground.
uncertain
gas → remain → CO2
Tasked with wrangling roughly three dozen of those scientists toward consensus was Sally Benson, a geoscientist from Lawrence Berkeley National Lab who was co-leading the report’s chapter on underground storage of carbon.
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who → task → carbon
After a quarter-century of studying how fluids and gases move beneath Earth’s surface, she was an unimpeachable authority on the subject.
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she → study → subject
She was also a savvy and diplomatic leader, skilled at managing rooms full of big egos and big tempers.
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She → manage → egos
It was proving handy in a process that had at times devolved into unruly debate.
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that → prove → debate
The scientists had clashed for years over what the report should say, first at a meeting in Canada, then in Norway, Australia and Brazil.
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report → clash → Norway
Three large-scale experiments were underway, but only one — a Norwegian operation that captured carbon from a natural gas field and pumped it under the bed of the North Sea — had rigorously tested permanent storage.
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that → capture → storage
There, the injected CO2 astonished engineers when it floated 700 feet upward through a series of geologic formations.
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it → inject → formations
To their relief, it hit a ceiling of shale that kept it underground, and the project was deemed a success.
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project → hit → it
But with so little to go on, the scientists warned in their first draft that any broad statement about leakage risk would be “almost meaningless.”
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statement → go → risk
The researchers were in Oviedo only because Saudi Arabia and other oil-exporting countries had pressured the U.N. to write the report despite the paucity of evidence, according to U.N. officials and records.
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Arabia → export → officials
The oil, gas and coal industries had spent years casting doubt on climate change while quietly fretting that policies to address it would one day put them out of business.
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policies → spend → business
The industry, documents show, saw CCS as a way to forestall that outcome, allowing the world to keep burning fossil fuels while simply burying the pollution underground.
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world → show → pollution
A U.N. report would bring the technology into the mainstream.
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report → bring → mainstream
In turn, the U.N. hoped such a report would draw the oil-producing nations into its search for climate solutions.
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report → hop → solutions
So despite objections from some nations and environmental organizations, which warned that the report would distract from the imperative to phase out fossil fuels, the U.N.’s preeminent climate science authority, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, went ahead.
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authority → warn → Change
And for the first time, it invited a large contingent of industry researchers to join the scientists in writing the report, as well as several representatives from environmental groups.
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it → invite → groups
Benson’s chapter included authors and editors from Shell, Chevron and Saudi Aramco.
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chapter → include → Shell
The process that followed would make some of the chapter’s scientists uneasy.
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some → follow → scientists
The IPCC’s procedures stated that reports should assess the existing research on a topic based on peer-reviewed literature and that exceptions must be reviewed and clearly cited.
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exceptions → state → literature
Bert Metz, one of the highest-ranking U.N. officials at the meeting, was pressing the group to come up with more definitive language about CCS’ potential.
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Metz → rank → potential
The report would be better if it could offer hard numbers, even where none existed in the literature: Precisely how many gigatons of storage capacity did the planet likely have?
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planet → offer → capacity
How long would a well-designed reservoir hold the CO2 injected into it?
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reservoir → design → it
With so little evidence to work with, David Keith, a Canadian physicist, proposed a workaround: The authors could conduct an “expert elicitation,” taking an anonymous survey about what they expected the evidence to eventually show.
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evidence → work → what
At first, not everyone was willing to go along.
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everyone → go → ?
Some scientists worried that making what amounted to educated guesses would mislead the public, they told Drilled and ProPublica.
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they → worry → Drilled
Benson and Metz, though, both argued that on such an important matter informed advice was better than nothing.
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advice → argue → nothing
In the end, the group agreed to take the survey and to keep it off the record — they would “burn it afterward,” Keith recounted, making no mention of it in the official report.
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Keith → agree → report
When the meeting concluded, some of the scientists popped their bottles of cava in celebration.
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some → conclude → celebration
“It’s not the hard science that you would prefer, obviously,” Metz would later tell Drilled and ProPublica.
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Metz → ’ → Drilled
Five months later, the IPCC published its special report, which would help legitimize CCS for a generation.
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which → publish → generation
…and 226 more, not listed.
The Aporia
