https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/07/27/is-this-labours-maddest-net-zero-project-yet/
By Jonathan Leake
UK Telegraph excerpt: It could be Ed Miliband’s oddest and costliest legacy. Just days before leaving his role as energy secretary, he signed off on a proposal to make Britain a “global leader” in greenhouse gas removals – technologies that literally strip carbon dioxide from the air around us.
The commitment, tucked away in a response to a review released just before Andy Burnham moved Miliband to the Foreign Office, is a minor footnote in his tenure. But the task he has left for successor Miatta Fahnbulleh is huge.
The atmospheric concentration of CO2 is just 0.04pc, meaning that removing it requires cleaning at least 1,600 tonnes of air for each tonne of CO2.
Moreover, humanity pumps another 40 billion tonnes of CO2 to the atmosphere each year – adding to the 2.5 trillion tonnes emitted since the industrial revolution.
Less than 1pc of that is produced by the UK. But in a report signed off by Miliband this month, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero committed Britain to kick-starting the clean-up.
