Chamber and committees

But how much of that carbon can be captured by 2030, given that the next eight years will be critical to climate change? Let us go back to the 6.6 billion figure. How much of that carbon can be captured through carbon capture and storage schemes and buried under the North Sea between now and 2030? What proportion of that—

I am sorry if I mischaracterised that. My question is, basically, who gets the hydrogen?

I have a quick question for Alan James. Last week, the UK Climate Change Committee said that there should be a cut-off point of 2023,

“beyond which efforts should be increased in other areas if commitments on CCS infrastructure ... are not secured.”

How confident is the industry that you will get that cast-iron guarantee by 2023 and that, as a result, we will not need a plan B?

I will ask specifically about blue hydrogen, because it seems that the Acorn project is economically dependent on its production. If we are putting 20 per cent of blue hydrogen into the gas grid, we might get a carbon saving on that, although the figures for blue hydrogen production are questionable. What about the 80 per cent? What about the natural gas that we will continue to be dependent on to run the particular type of national grid that is required for heating? Does that not build in dependence on unabated natural gas?

I want to ask a critical question about how we deploy CCS in a way that does not build in dependency on fossil fuels. We have heard comments from Erik Dalhuijsen about fossil hydrogen production and, related to that, there might be on-going dependence on natural gas if we are to use it for domestic heating. Where do we draw the line and refocus on the hard-to-abate sectors—for example, cement—without playing into enhanced oil recovery or fossil hydrogen production, within the economics of CCS? I put that to Professor Haszeldine.

You talked about there being a demand of not 6 billion but 15 billion to 18 billion barrels, so I come back to my question: how much of that carbon could be captured under the Acorn project or future projects, and what would be the timescale for that?

I will ask Colin Pritchard about hydrogen. My understanding is that it will be a precious energy commodity that we will need to decarbonise the hard-to-abate sectors, such as steel. Is there a need to deploy a hydrogen hierarchy, whereby we prioritise the use of hydrogen for the hard-to-abate sectors and perhaps deprioritise the decarbonisation of the way that we heat our homes, or do we just need more of everything?

I know that time is short, convener, so I will hand back to you.

Does that ethos of collaboration extend to Parliaments and civic society? Is that also codified in the concordats? Is there an expectation that citizens will be involved in discussions around trade agreements or any other policies that are pursued by regions or states?

Can I bring in Dr Zuleeg, please?