New North Sea oil and gas licences ‘incompatible with UK climate goals’
New oil and gas licences for the North Sea are incompatible with the UK’s international climate commitments and the Paris climate agreement, analysts have said.
The government is considering licences for new oil and gas fields in the North Sea, under pressure from backbench MPs and media commentators, who claim new fossil fuel development is needed to reduce energy bills.
But the additional greenhouse gas emissions from developing new oil and gas fields, as existing wells are depleted, would bust the UK’s carbon budgets and set the world on course to exceed the limit of 1.5C targeted at last year’s Cop26 UN climate summit, according to researchers at UCL.
Daniel Welsby, a research fellow at UCL and co-author of a research note seen by the Guardian on the UK’s potential new licences, said for the government to justify licensing new fossil fuels, ministers would have to be able to persuade other countries to reduce their production.
“There is no need for new oil and gas fields in the UK,” he told the Guardian. “For the UK to produce more oil and gas, another oil producer would need to keep their oil and gas in the ground.”
The paper, from UCL scientists and commissioned by the campaign group Uplift, says: “The development of new UK oil and gas fields are not compatible with limiting warming in line with the Paris agreement … We recommend a moratorium be placed on all new oil and gas fields and the government focus its efforts on supporting the transition to a low carbon economy, both domestically and internationally.”
Within the next few weeks, the Committee on Climate Change, the statutory advisory body to the government on the climate crisis, will deliver its verdict on whether new exploration and exploitation in the North Sea
Read more on theguardian.com
