US leads wealthy countries spending billions of public money on unproven ‘climate solutions’

A pipe carries carbon dioxide captured from emissions at a generating station in Thompsons, Texas, on 16 February 2017. Photograph: Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg via Getty Images

A handful of wealthy polluting countries led by the US are spending billions of dollars of public money on unproven climate solutions technologies that risk further delaying the transition away from fossil fuels, new analysis suggests.

These governments have handed out almost $30bn in subsidies for carbon capture and fossil hydrogen over the past 40 years, with hundreds of billions potentially up for grabs through new incentives, according to a new report by Oil Change International (OCI), a non-profit tracking the cost of fossil fuels.