North Wales MS warns residents shut out of CO2 pipeline safety talks
Residents living along planned carbon dioxide pipeline routes in North Wales risk being shut out of a UK government safety consultation, a Senedd committee heard on Wednesday.
Carolyn Thomas MS (Labour, North Wales) raised the concern at the final public session of the Climate Change, Environment and Infrastructure Committee, after members were asked to note a letter from the Deputy First Minister on the UK Emissions Trading Scheme authority’s consultation on regulating cross-boundary carbon capture and storage pipelines.
Ms Thomas said the consultation document itself made the problem plain. It states it is “aimed at anyone with an interest in CCS policy in the UK ETS, especially companies who plan to operate CCS pipelines.”
She told the committee that was not good enough. “I believe that residents should also have an interest in the community that it’s going through,” she said.
Her central concern was that planning decisions affecting people living along pipeline routes could be made without those communities being formally involved. “My concern is whether there will be proper planning consultation with residents and local authorities and that it is not just rushed through by the industry,” she said.
Ms Thomas also raised questions about safety, telling the committee the Health and Safety Executive had indicated that “the behaviour of carbon dioxide in its purest form is still relatively unknown.” She said she still had concerns that carbon capture remained an innovative technology rather than a proven one.
She confirmed she would respond individually to the Deputy First Minister’s letter and sought assurance that the issue would return to the next Senedd after May’s election. No such commitment was given on the record.
The consultation has direct relevance to North Wales.
The HyNet project, backed by fossil fuel companies including ENI and Essar, proposes capturing carbon dioxide in the North West of England and transporting it via cross-boundary pipeline to depleted gas wells beneath the Irish Sea off the North Wales coast.
The pipeline corridor runs through communities in North East Wales.
Ms Thomas set out her opposition to the project in January 2024, describing it as “an expensive white elephant.”
In that piece, she cited HSE guidance that CO2 in carbon capture and storage operations “presents major hazard potential,” describing the substance as both an asphyxiant and intoxicant. She also noted that ENI had committed to monitoring its CO2 reservoirs off the North Wales coast for just 20 years.
She raised wider doubts about the track record of carbon capture globally, pointing to projects in the United States and Australia that had captured far less carbon than promised. And she questioned the economic benefit for North Wales communities, saying that when she asked HyNet directly about union recognition and reinvestment in the region, she “received only obfuscation and evasion in response.”
At Wednesday’s session, she was not alone in wanting scrutiny to continue. The committee chair, Llyr Gruffydd MS (Plaid Cymru, North Wales), acknowledged her point but offered no specific commitment, saying only that the committee “would encourage everyone to participate in all consultations.”
The Climate Change, Environment and Infrastructure Committee meets for the last time before the Senedd dissolves ahead of May’s election. Mr Gruffydd used the close of the public session to thank members, officials and stakeholders for their work across the Sixth Senedd term, with specific thanks to Julie Morgan and Joyce Watson, both of whom are standing down.
“I know that I speak on behalf of everyone when I wish you well on any path that you wish to undertake after the election,” he said.
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