oil and gas tagged posts

The UK has opened a new licensing round for companies to explore for oil and gas in the North Sea. Nearly 900 locations are being offered for exploration, with as many as 100 licences set to be awarded. The decision is at odds with international climate scientists who say fossil fuel projects should be closed down, not expanded. They say there can be no new projects if there is to be a chance of keeping global temperature rises under 1.5C. 

Both the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the global body for climate science and the International Energy Agency (IEA) have expressed such a view.

The government’s own advisers on climate change said in a report earlier this year that the best way to ease consumers’ pain from high energy prices was to stop using fossil fuels r...

More oil and gas wells are to be drilled in the North Sea, the UK government has announced. The decision has angered environmental campaigners, who say the government should refuse new licences. Ministers say permission to drill will be granted as part of a careful transition away from fossil fuels, safeguarding jobs and the economy. But environmentalists say that enough fossil fuels to ruin the climate have already been found.

In light of this, they say, the government should have refused the new licences.

They add that the decision undermines the UK position as leader of the vital UN climate conference in November, known as COP26. 

But ministers insist that their strategy will work...