The data is buried in a footnote of the latest government inventory of greenhouse gas emissions. It reveals that the Moomba CCS project, owned by Santos, captured just half a megatonne of emissions in the first quarter of 2025.
World-renowned climate analyst and Senior Research Fellow at The Australia Institute, Ketan Joshi, says this equates to just 4.6 days' worth of Santos' total emissions and just 1.6 days' worth of domestic emissions from Australia's fossil fuel industries.
"In a full year, Santos will, at most, capture about 4.3% of their total emissions – yet it was paid $15 million from the Morrison government to fund this carbon capture and storage facility," said Ketan Joshi, Senior Research Fellow at The Australia Institute.
"If that's not bad enough, they are now being issued carbon offsets for the use of the CCS facility, which means that another polluter can buy the offsets from this facility to greenwash their emissions, as well.
"The truth is, carbon capture and storage is one of the biggest false promises in the fight against climate change.
"CCS is a fantasy policy at a time when Australia and the world need the exact opposite – real action to reduce real emissions on the road to real zero. Rather than dodgy offsets and questionable carbon capture and storage projects, it's time to stop new gas and coal projects."
The full analysis can be found here
