Grant Shapps, energy security secretary, says it would be ‘irresponsible’ not to use oil from North Sea
Grant Shapps has said it would be “irresponsible” not to grant new oil and gas licences in the North Sea and insisted the UK will “still meet our net zero targets”.
The energy security secretary told Times Radio that The North Sea basin is very mature and is “effectively running out”.
The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) says that in order to meet the goals of 1.5% (degrees Celsius), no more than 1.5% warming, we would need to reduce by 4% a year the amount of oil and gas.
We are, even with these licences, on a trajectory to reduce by 7% a year because we’re running out of oil and gas in the North Sea.
Everyone supports this country’s transition to net zero but we cannot get there by telling people ‘we’re simply going to stop using oil and gas’.
The only way to do that would be to tell people ‘don’t put your gas boiler on, don’t drive a petrol car’, and do that almost instantaneously.
We’ve been moving very fast. This is just the latest round of investment into renewables by some of the very biggest energy companies in the land.
