Green Anger Over Plan For More North Sea Gas To Wean Britain Off Russian Energy

Boris Johnson yesterday told oil and gas companies he wants to “remove barriers” to increased extraction of fossil fuels from the North Sea as part of his plan to wean the UK off reliance on Russian energy.

- Andrew Woodcock

In a Downing Street roundtable with bosses of giants including BP and Shell, the prime minister said he wanted to accelerate investment and development of domestic gas supplies and ensure new projects come on stream more quickly.

The development was the latest evidence of how UK energy policy has been turned on its head by Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, just months after the PM’s publication of an ambitious strategy to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Johnson last week announced the UK would cease use of Russian oil – but not gas – by the end of 2022, but made clear that homegrown hydrocarbons are expected to take up much of the slack.

Environmentalists warned that global warming targets risk being pushed to the side in the race to break the energy dominance which allows Putin to fund his military adventure.

Philip Evans, campaigner at Greenpeace UK, said: “In backing more oil and gas the PM risks being led down the garden path when he should be fixing his gaze on what we know can get us off gas much quicker – namely, rapid deployment of renewables and an upgrade to our cold, inefficient homes through the likes of insulation and heat pumps.”

Any newly licensed oil and gas fields would take an average 28 years to develop, so “even a sharp acceleration would leave decades before any results”, and companies would anyway then sell it internationally to the highest bidder, said Mr Evans.

Friends of the Earth’s energy campaigner Danny Gross said: “Since 2015, North Sea oil and gas companies have received over £4bn of public money.