Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will visit Scotland on Monday to discuss the central role it will play in defending the UK against disrupted global energy supplies.

The UK government is considering potential new licences for drilling in the North Sea, including the Rosebank site that has the potential to produce 500m barrels of oil.

That has proved controversial with environmental campaigners, with Greta Thunberg joining a protest in London, and the Scottish Greens said on Monday the new fields will be "catastrophic for our climate, and will do absolutely nothing for our security".

Mr Sunak is expected to lay out plans for carbon capture to reduce emissions - but what exactly would that entail?

Here's what you need to know.

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What is carbon capture?

As the name suggests, it involves capturing and storing the carbon dioxide generated by burning fossil fuels.

It's not new - the gas has previously been captured and pumped back into oil wells to release more oil - but the current plans are said to be a boon in the UK's transition to net zero.

In this case, increased oil production would be offset by storing the resulting CO2 in caverns underneath the North Sea.

It's claimed that the use of CCS (carbon capture and storage) technology could reduce carbon output by 90%, while allowing a more gradual transition to green energy.

The government has targeted net zero by 2050.

Sounds good, what's the problem?

The Herald: How Carbon capture and storage worksHow Carbon capture and storage works (Image: PA)

Put simply, scientists aren't sure it actually works.

Last year more than 700 scientists wrote to the Prime Minister to urge him not to approve any new oil and gas projects, and warning carbon capture has "yet to be proved at scale".

Where has it been tried so far?

The US and Canada have already experimented with carbon capture.

Shute Creek in the U.S. underperformed its carbon capture capacity by around 36% over its lifetime, and Boundary Dam in Canada by about 50%.

Read More: Sunak to announce investment in carbon capture in north east

A study by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis looked at 13 large-scale carbon capture projects and just two - both in Norway - met expectations.

In 2020 Reuters reported there were 26 commercial CCS facilities in operation able to capture about 40 million tonnes of carbon dioxide - emissions were around 36.4 billion tonnes per year.

What is the government planning to invest in CCS?

It's planned £20bn will be invested over the next two decades.