The UK’s leading offshore energy body has said environmental activists could undermine the country’s energy security and hinder its efforts to reach net zero. Protests, legal action and publicity stunts by organisations including Extinction Rebellion, Just Stop Oil and Greenpeace may deter investment in the North Sea and set back the UK’s efforts to cut emissions, according to Offshore Energies UK (OEUK).
The group’s chief executive Deirdre Michie is due to address colleagues in a speech at OEUK’s annual conference on Tuesday. Activists have refuted her comments, claiming it is the country’s dependence on fossil fuels that undermines energy security, not the people highlighting the problem.
Ms Michie said attempts by pressure groups to block further oil and gas investment in UK waters would make the country increasingly dependent on other countries for energy, which could include Russia. In her speech, she is to emphasise the role oil and gas-derived energy and products have for British consumers, noting that emissions are driven by a country’s infrastructure, and not by the source of its fuels.
Ms Michie will say: “Our conference today follows months of disruption, protests and legal actions involving groups like Extinction Rebellion, Just Stop Oil, Greenpeace and others. It’s no irony to say that we are aligned with their long-term vision, of a low-carbon UK, but we do disagree with their approach as to how we get there because the actions they’ve been taking - headline grabbing but damaging - are another risk to investor confidence.”
OEUK claims the UK has 32 million petrol and diesel vehicles, 24 million homes reliant on gas boilers, and 35 power stations that use gas to make 40% of the country’s power, which Ms Michie said “does absolutely need to change”. She added: "But, and this is not an excuse, those changes will take time, so for some decades to come, much of our energy will inevitably come from oil and gas.
“Of course, we do have a choice as to where that oil and gas comes from. We could cut production and increase imports, intensifying our reliance on other countries, but as the Ukraine crisis shows, that’s not a great option. Or we could instead choose to invest in the oil and gas resources in our own back yard.”
A spokesman for Greenpeace UK said: “It’s our dependence on fossil fuels that’s undermining our energy security, not the activists highlighting the problem. It’s fossil fuels that are giving us budget-busting energy bills, funding Putin’s war and fuelling megadroughts and record-breaking heatwaves all over the world."
A spokeswoman from Extinction Rebellion quoted UN secretary general Antonio Guterres, who said: “Climate activists are sometimes depicted as dangerous radicals. But the truly dangerous radicals are the countries that are increasing the production of fossil fuels.”
Just Stop Oil members said: “It is beyond ironic that Offshore Energies UK seeks to blame climate activists for the UK Government’s energy security failure, when they represent the very industry that has lobbied governments for decades to delay climate action and kept us dependent on toxic oil and gas. Such actions will soon be viewed as criminal and those who have undertaken them will be prosecuted."
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