The UK can't turn up to the Santa Marta conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels this week saying "Good work folks, but we're going to do Rosebank, Jackdaw and Cambo anyway". It would be like going to COP in the Amazon with no money for the world's forests in the TFFF... oh wait...
Finally, you're absolutely right: Britain should decouple domestic oil production from domestic oil consumption and go all in for electrification. But increasing supply at the same time locks in extraction and downstream emissions we can’t afford within a finite *global* carbon budget.
I've got to say it also feels a bit odd to be concerned about the lifecycle emissions of LNG imports being worse than UK production, but not to consider the emissions associated with increased UK production then being burned overseas after we've reduced domestic consumption.
You create a false dichotomy saying "left & right both assume" increased production increases consumption. The issue with new North Sea production is not necessarily the impact on UK carbon accounting, it's with the contribution to global climate change wherever those fossil fuels are burned.
You talk about "being like Norway" - the idea our dwindling privatised reserves could somehow fund something like a sovereign wealth fund is for the birds. I'd love to know what your mechanism for that is (windfall taxation?), and how you would maintain Shell's interest in drilling profitably.
You then move from gas to oil, where the dynamics differ. Oil is fully fungible. It would be ideal if we didn't get it from rogue states, of course. But, short of nationalisation, UK oil will be sold to the highest bidder not strategically retained and so can't materially help with a price crunch.
Qatar is just 1.2% of UK supply - it's a very significant producer for global supply and so for global and regional prices. But from the perspective of UK lifecycle emissions US LNG (15.3%) is a bigger issue. Electrification is the answer to that, not more UK production.
Plus your LNG point risks being overstated. Nearly half of UK gas imports come from Norway where flaring is banned, methane leakage is low - it's cleaner than the domestic 30% of our gas!
On gas: even with new North Sea fields, UK import dependence is projected to rise from around 55% today to 90% by 2050. In that scenario, domestic production doesn’t change the overall picture much, even if it has lower lifecycle emissions than LNG.
You accept the UK is a price‑taker and that new licences won’t shift global prices. So it’s hard to see how UK production would actually displace Russia, Gulf or US. If it doesn’t displace other supply, then new UK production just adds to global emissions - again it doesn't matter where it's burned.
“If prices are unaffected, there’s no reason consumption would rise.” That may hold for UK use. But climate change is driven by total global CO2. If the fuel is burned anywhere, it still counts.
Sorry David, but I think this argument rests on several false premises that don't quite add up. 🧵⬇️
Such interesting data to publish. Not least because I'm told semi-regularly that MPs don't hear enough from constituents about climate, nature and the environment. Allowing for some agriculture/food and international affairs contact being on environmental issues, it's the single most common issue!
What if the whole country saw the full picture? This is a national emergency. The impacts are already here.
But the solutions exist.
Communities are watching the People’s Emergency Briefing and discussing what to do next with neighbours and MPs
#EarthDay
Screenings www.nebriefing.org/screening-map
Those issues can be resolved, but it doesn't feel like Starmer and his current cabinet are the ones who can do it.
But (and maybe this is just me projecting) there's surely something in values. It's hard to hold your nose when there's ODA cuts, cruel immigration policy, a foreign policy that puts the UK inexplicably close to the Trump & Netanyahu governments, & a sense of unfairness at the top with jobs for boys
But that generation probably won't vote Labour in two weeks time. Maybe it's just the economy, stupid. Feeling like you're in a permanent cost of living crisis isn't going away. Support for bills and wage increases are instantly swallowed up by higher rents, mortgage rates and food prices.
The generation that grew up under New Labour should have an affinity to Labour. They could give Starmer the benefit of the doubt on Mandelson. Say Reeves is doing a good enough job with an impossible hand. That Ed is great, education & the NHS are fine, renters & workers rights are what they want.
A small point from the Mandelson/Robbins saga. Refom and many Tories argue for a civil service than can be more easily bent to the will and whims of their elected political masters.
This is precisely what happened here.
Meanwhile cronyism and patronage abound - being generous I'd say at least half of advisers were appointed based on who they know more than what they know. That's changed a bit in the last 6 months. And varies by Minister/department. But it's not a great look.
Based on what we know of the No 10 operation it's entirely possible that both things are true. Huge pressure exerted by McSweeney while the PM (chose to) remain uninformed.
Ed Miliband becoming the more obvious answer every day.
Making this grim read even more depressing is that "the belief that process can, in and of itself, lead to better outcomes" is probably quite widely shared across the UK political class.
Tomorrow, UK retail time of use power prices will fall as low as -11p/kWh because it's sunny and windy. Renewables are decoupling electricity prices from fossil fuels, starting an afternoon at a time.
institute.global/insights/cli...
Kind of mad that 11 years on we live in a world where the level of support for not burning the world is partly determined by a group of people who don't like Ed Miliband, blame him for losing in 2015, and so think his political judgement on everything is suspect.
Ten emperor penguins in snow with a grey sky behind them. Text reads "Emperor penguins now endangered" with a red box around the last word.
Emperor penguins have been reclassified from ‘Near Threatened’ to ‘Endangered’.
We need to take action to tackle climate change and safeguard their habitats.
The fate of these magnificent birds is in our hands.
www.wwf.org.uk/press-releas...
It's not hard. We know the lines that work against it:
-industrialising the countryside
-earthquakes
-groundwater pollution
-anti-democratic
-the benefits accrue to a wealthy few who will trash your local area, take the profits and leave your community to clean up all the environmental harms.
Tice said again today that Reform would introduce fracking to bring down gas prices. It remains super unpopular, especially in the places Reform want to win. They aren't getting hammered on it by Labour or NGOs nearly enough. It should be on every leaflet in North East Derbyshire and Blackpool South
I wonder how quickly petrol prices and mortgage rates will fall compared to how quickly they rose, and just how big the profits will be in the gap?
