Whilst the energy poverty debate remains just that - a debate - and a firm commitment to carbon emission reduction is becoming more diluted with every pre-Copenhagen meeting and conference that takes place in the run up to next month, we continue to be fed the placebo that is carbon capture and storage (CCS).

We were formally introduced to this by Ed Miliband, climate change secretary, back in March after he sought to say anything good after the premiere of “The Age of Stupid”. The way CCS works, in a nutshell, is that you put a big old bucket on top of all your carbon emitting chimneys (capture) and divert the carbon heavy ‘stuff’ through tubes to some deep underground cavern or tank that you’ve built and leave it there until everyone’s forgotten about it (storage); in principle, quite straightforward with gas as you just send the carbon waste back along the same pipe as you received the gas from that you are burning… bit more complex with coal, though.

Well, not only has nothing really happened since Miliband blurted out his bit of news at the beginning of the year, but the major energy providers (BP, EDF Energy, E.ON, Shell), together with a few others have clubbed together and thrown a bit of loose change at the Energy Technology Institute, a government-backed company, to commission a £3.5 million research project into finding out how much storage space there is in the UK for our carbon emissions.

ETI chief executive David Clarke is quoted as saying “Fossil fuels will remain an important source of energy and coal is a cheap and relatively secure fuel so we have to find a way of using those fossil fuel plants and capturing the CO2 and storing it somewhere. [..] CCS is a complex challenge and requires us to demonstrate a whole new aspect of UK energy operations in the next 10 years.”

So what appears to be being said here is that whilst the scientific data continues to mount, showing not only what is going to happen to carbon fuel prices over the next decade and the very real impact of continued carbon emissions at the current rate to the global ecology and, by implication, the global economy, the major energy providers, in cahoots HMG, are going to spend the next decade travelling the coastline of the UK (presumably, with £3.5 million in their pockets, first class all the way) looking out to sea with a pair of binoculars to scan for likely dumping sites.

In the meantime, they will continue to pump out carbon gases at an alarming rate before they actually (1) complete the study, (2) commission the construction of the storage sites, (3) commission the construction of the capture technology and infrastructure and (4) actually switch on the mechanism… at best, there will be something in place by 2030, at which point every meaningful target and deadline for carbon reduction will have been missed but the energy providers will still have been able to sell their oil, gas and coal at a premium and we’ll all be scrabbling around looking for alternative fuel sources that will power our businesses viably, economically and sustainably.

Now, I may be over-reacting a little but this all seems to me to be making a mockery of next month’s planned climate change summit in Copenhagen and begs the question as to whether the event actually has any relevance when the only green agenda the political arena entertains is the colour of big business’ money to the exclusion of its electorates future economic security.

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