In a statement, RimbaWatch said a major problem with carbon capture, utilisation, and storage (CCUS) is that the “utilisation” part involves using the captured carbon dioxide to extract high-carbon fossil fuels, like sour gas.
Sour gas refers to natural gas that contains a significant amount of hydrogen sulfide. It is considered a high-carbon fossil fuel because its extraction and processing release substantial greenhouse gas emissions.
“While the bill bans using imported carbon dioxide for this purpose, it does not restrict the use of locally captured carbon dioxide. This loophole could encourage more fossil fuel extraction, ultimately harming the climate,” RimbaWatch said.
It released a 16-page report on the environmental impact of CCUS initiatives in Malaysia, which outlined several key findings including the loopholes in the bill.
RimbaWatch also called for an independent national inquiry into CCUS to assess whether its fossil fuel emissions align with Malaysia’s 1.5°C commitment under the Paris Agreement and to examine the influence of corporate lobbying on this legislation.
No penalties
According to RimbaWatch, the bill does not include any provisions for penalties for CCUS projects that leak carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere, or which capture significantly lower amounts of the gas than touted.
It said the CCUS bill also grants the government full discretion over who may be prosecuted for violations under the bill, mirroring controversial laws like the Official Secrets Act and the Sedition Act.
“Despite being framed as a commercial and environmental regulatory law, we observe that the CCUS bill gives sweeping control to the government by ensuring that decisions on prosecution remain tightly centralised under ministerial oversight, namely in the proposed Section 48.
“The fact that provisions for national security have been imposed onto the CCUS Bill, an economic and climate law, raises serious concerns about accountability, enforcement, and whether the public have access to legal recourse if CCUS operations go wrong,” it added.
CCUS projects not meeting the mark?
In its report, RimbaWatch also found that nine out of 10 CCUS initiatives in Malaysia can be linked to the extraction of more fossil fuels rather than the main objective of reducing emissions.
It warned that despite the strong regulatory focus on CCUS, no fossil fuel company nor government agency has conducted a comprehensive impact assessment of such projects to evaluate their full lifecycle impact.
RimbaWatch added that based on analysis using its Carbon Accounting Guide on three CCUS initiatives with available reserve data, it found that they are designed to, and will enable, the extraction of more than 20 trillion cubic feet of previously unextractable sour gas reserves.
“The extraction of this amount of resources will result in 55.1 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in annual emissions (tCO2e), with total emissions from these reserves reaching 1.379 billion tCO2e, which is equivalent to Japan’s total emissions in 2023.
“Despite this, the CCUS initiatives will only remove 10% of these emissions in a best-case scenario,” it said.