A new law governing carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS), passed last week in Malaysia, has been criticised by lawmakers and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) for failing to properly address carbon capture risks.
The CCUS Bill was approved on 7 March, just two days after it was tabled in the country’s parliament, despite concerns from multiple organisations about the lack of public consultation.
NGO Sahabat Alam Malaysia (SAM) called the rushed approval “completely unacceptable,” arguing that risks associated with CCUS have not been adequately addressed.
According to SAM, while the bill references issues such as carbon dioxide (CO2) leakage when storing the gas underground, it does not provide clear mechanisms for addressing this risk.
The NGO cited a UN report which found that underground leakage may trigger geochemical reactions, potentially causing earthquakes and contaminating drinking water with heavy metals.
“There are [also] huge concerns regarding integrity and permanence of disposed carbon,” stated Meenakshi Raman, President of SAM.
In September 2024, a carbon storage facility in Illinois, US, saw 8,000 tonnes of CO2 escape from underground rock formations, violating safe drinking water rules. A similar incident at a Texas oil field has been linked to 18 earthquakes above magnitude 3.0 over five years following CO2 injection into the subsurface. The area had no recorded earthquakes in the 20 years prior to the facility being developed.
NGOs like SAM have voiced concerns over the CCUS process, in particular the potential for CO2 to leak into substrate after being sequestered underground.
SAM argued that such incidents highlight the risks of underground CO2 storage, which can lead to geochemical reactions, potential drinking water contamination, and seismic activity.
SAM also warned that large-scale carbon capture projects often struggle with financial viability. “Projects larger than 1 Mt (million tonnes) of CO2 per year are very likely to fail within the first ten years,” said Raman, noting that this makes them difficult to finance and therefore needing public funding.
Beyond environmental and financial risks, the NGO raised concerns that CCUS could serve as a lifeline for the fossil fuel industry. Critics argue that instead of driving emissions reductions, CCUS allows industries to prolong the life of oil and gas assets while diverting funding from renewable energy. A Global CCS Institute report found that many large-scale CCUS projects had failed to meet their intended capture rates or were decommissioned prematurely.
However, industry groups and government officials defended CCUS as vital to hitting Malaysia’s Net Zero targets, and it is built into the global modelling. The Malaysian Ministry of Economy calls it “an essential technology” for decarbonising heavy industries, while the Global CCS Institute argues that improved monitoring, injection techniques, and regulation will mitigate risks. It points to existing CCUS facilities as proof of its viability with proper safeguards.
