Governments and energy companies are placing large bets on clean hydrogen and carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology playing a leading role in efforts to lower greenhouse gas emissions.

Late last year, BP acquired a majority stake in the largest US carbon offset developer, Finite Carbon.

BP`s H2Teesside project aims to produce by 2030 one gigawatt of blue hydrogen, where carbon emissions are not released into the atmosphere.

The facility would capture and send for storage up to two million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year, equivalent to capturing the emissions from the heating of one million UK households, BP said.

"Clean hydrogen is an essential complement to electrification on the path to net-zero. Blue hydrogen, integrated with carbon capture and storage, can provide the scale and reliability needed by industrial processes," said Dev Sanyal, BP`s executive vice president of gas and low carbon energy.

Last month, Royal Dutch Shell set out plans to boost the use of carbon offsets and CCS technology, after the energy giant vowed to eliminate carbon by 2050.