NextGen Announces Pre-Purchase Of Bogus Carbon Capture Offsets

Today, NextGen announced the pre-purchase of carbon capture offsets they are calling the world’s largest diversified portfolio of permanent carbon dioxide removals. Under the scam marketplace, companies can buy credits per metric ton of carbon dioxide claimed to be removed and sell them to polluters as offsets.

Summit Carbon Solutions’ controversial 2,000-mile long hazardous carbon pipeline proposed for the Midwest is among the initial project partners offering the advance purchase of credits despite not having broken ground.

Carbon offset markets have been repeatedly exposed as fraudulent, ineffective schemes that do little to reduce emissions. Carbon dioxide removal is similarly proven to fail. Direct air capture produces between 2.2-3.5 tons of CO2 equivalent emissions for every ton captured; while an Illinois ethanol carbon capture facility often touted as proof of concept has increased emissions since installing the technology in 2017.

Summit Carbon Solutions’ Midwest Carbon Express pipeline is mired in legal battles, fighting staunch public opposition to secure eminent domain authority and begin construction. Iowa is at the center of the company’s pipeline proposal, which would run 680 miles through the state. Public opinion polling conducted last month found that fully 78% of Iowans opposed the use of eminent domain for carbon pipelines, and the project’s docket before state regulators charged with determining that authority has over 600 objections filed to date. The project is one of three carbon pipelines proposed for the region.

Food & Water Watch Policy Director Jim Walsh issued the following statement:

“Carbon offset markets are widely discredited. Their only benefit lies in enriching the middlemen charged with selling the lie — NextGen’s scheme is no different. Carbon capture is a costly and ineffective distraction from the real work of transitioning off dirty fossil and biofuels.

“The Biden administration’s foolhardy embrace of failed carbon removal technologies are to blame for the latest corporate gold rush to sell the carbon capture scam. Bogus carbon capture offsets are no solution to the climate crisis. Nowhere is this more obvious than the hazardous carbon pipelines in the Midwest, where residents are being asked to sacrifice their land and safety so a private corporation like Summit can make billions.”