BC Ex-Premier Drops Truth Bomb: "We've Spent Billions To Convince Ourselves Carbon Capture Works. It Doesn't Work". [View all]

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For years, Canadian officials and oil industry backers have pitched carbon capture and storage (CCS) as the solution that would allow Alberta’s oil sands — and the nation’s proposed west coast pipeline — to proceed with a lower climate impact. Now, in a speech at this year’s Canada Strong and Free Network (CSFN) conference in Vancouver, keynote speaker and former British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell warned the costly, troubled technology has failed to deliver, undercutting a central justification for billions in public subsidies and new oil infrastructure.

This reporter was there in person at the April 24 CSFN gathering. Formerly the Manning Centre for Building Democracy, the CSFN self-describes as supporting “conservative and libertarian activists and ideas in Canada”. Imagine a MAGA-adjacent gabfest featuring speakers mostly cheerleading extractive industries or fear-mongering about First Nations rights. My already low expectations were not exceeded.

However, there was an unexpected utterance of truth from Campbell, who was the first elected leader in North America to bring in a carbon tax. And what does he think about the technology being touted to clean up ballooning emissions from the Alberta oil sands and justifying a new pipeline to the BC coast? “It’s time to take off the blinders. Carbon capture and storage is something we’ve talked about in Canada for more than a generation, more than 25 years,” he told the conference. “We’ve invested billions of dollars trying to convince ourselves that carbon capture and storage will work. It doesn’t work. It costs money. And that money is money that we take out of other potential productive resources that we could have for Canadians.”

Campbell was certainly not suggesting that fossil fuel extraction be scaled back. His comments instead pointed out that pretending to solve emissions problems with expensive and ineffective carbon capture and storage is an unwise waste of scarce public resources. This unusual truth-bomb from a public figure stands in stark contrast to the theater playing out in Alberta and Ottawa, where CCS is being heavily promoted and backed by billions in public money as a panacea for oil sands climate costs. Even a Pathways Alliance co-founder is now publicly coming out against the CCS project in a recent Globe and Mail op-ed, equating long-delayed efforts by the oil patch to limit its massive carbon emissions with a cash-strapped household wasting money on a vacation or meal deliveries. Is Big Oil now pivoting away from a marquee carbon capture project it never intended to build?

EDIT

https://www.desmog.com/2026/05/06/former-bc-premier-gordon-campbell-carbon-capture-doesnt-work/