The UK's latest hydrocarbon policy is not climate friendly

Expanded North Sea production could come to haunt the country

- Lara Williams

It takes astonishing mental gymnastics to believe that increasing production of fossil fuels is good for the climate. But that’s the message British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is selling with his approval of 100 new North Sea oil and gas licences. Speaking to broadcasters while visiting Scotland, Sunak claimed that drilling for more oil and gas is “entirely consistent with our plan to get to net zero" and that producing such energy domestically saves “two, three, four times the amount of carbon emissions." He failed to mention that the vast majority of emissions from oil and gas comes when you actually burn the stuff and that Britain gets about 77% of its gas imports via pipeline from Norway, which is less than half the carbon intensity of domestically produced gas.

Sunak is touting the expansion of domestic production as a way of boosting the UK’s energy security and reducing the country’s “reliance on hostile states," but there’s clearly an element of wanting to set his Conservative Party apart from Labour, which has pledged a ban on new North Sea oil and gas exploration. Ironically, analysis by Carbon Brief, a publisher specializing in climate and energy issues, shows that the UK would actually have greater energy security under a Labour government, thanks to its pledge to decarbonize the electricity grid by 2030.