It is a delusion to believe that the world’s climate is being pushed to the brink solely by undemocratic petrostates such as Russia and Saudi Arabia. The truth is that about half of all planned oil and gas developments between now and 2050 will be sanctioned by wealthy governments that position themselves as climate leaders: the US, Canada, Australia, Norway and the UK.
It is the countries that like to think of themselves as the good guys that are driving the climate crisis – and not just because of historical emissions and the high-carbon lifestyles of our middle class. It is because our governments refuse to take one of the most obvious actions needed to stop the crisis: keeping oil and gas in the ground. As we have heard time and again, governments are planning to sanction vastly more oil and gas than can be burned in a world with a safe climate.
What explains this egregious state of affairs? The capture of our politics by the oil and gas industry is one explanation. We hear politicians repeating the industry’s talking points – “change will only come by driving down demand, not cutting off the supply” – knowing that the industry has fought tooth and nail to delay measures that would reduce demand for their product. They say that oil and gas profits are needed to fund the transition to clean energy, all the while knowing that oil and gas companies account for only 1% of clean energy investment globally. They point an accusing finger at oil- and gas producing-countries in the Gulf, while they continue to approve new oil and gas projects despite having highly diversified economies, driven by several other industries.
In Norway, the government is desperate to draw attention to the number of electric vehicles on its roads, but there is no distracting from its voracious appetite for oil and gas drilling. Its state-owned oil company, Equinor, is also pushing forward massive new projects in other countries, such as the Rosebank oilfield off the coast of Scotland (which my organisation, Uplift, is challenging in the courts alongside Greenpeace). All wealthy countries think they will produce the last barrel of oil, profiting until the very end.
Here in the UK, a movement has sprung up to loudly defend the public interest and weaken the power of the oil and gas industry. Supported by calls from scientists, health experts, MPs and even ex-oil and gas CEOs, this movement is challenging the dominance of the industry and its reheated arguments. It successfully halted the Cambo oilfield in 2021; framed the terms of the debate in Westminster and put pressure on politicians over new oil and gas licensing rounds; and is now focused on stopping the biggest undeveloped oilfield in the North Sea at Rosebank.
Rosebank is a compelling case study in the folly of new oil and gas production in the UK. It will produce oil for export that will do nothing to strengthen our energy security nor lower household bills; it will receive billions in tax breaks while the profits flow to the Norwegian government via Equinor; and the emissions from burning its reserves are the same as running 56 coal-fired power stations for a year.
But there are promising signs that the tide is turning. The flawed environmental calculus that enables governments to approve new oil and gas fields has recently been corrected by courts in the UK and Norway. Governments must now consider the emissions caused by burning the oil and gas extracted from fields when they assess a project’s environmental impacts, not just the much smaller emissions created by the extraction process. This is a crucial step towards a fairer, more transparent environmental governance. In the aftermath of the supreme court ruling in the UK, the government has dropped the defence to a legal challenge over the creation of a new coalmine in Whitehaven and reversed its decision to allow oil drilling in Lincolnshire.
Together with its commitment to end new exploration licensing, our new government is starting to grasp the urgent imperative to curb new production, as well as the huge opportunities presented by the transition to renewable energy. Unlocking these opportunities will require a properly funded and comprehensive just transition, and an industrial strategy designed with the interest of workers and ordinary people at its heart. But the reward for getting it right is thousands of good, long-term jobs; new sources of prosperity in parts of the country that need it most; and more affordable energy for all. And the biggest prize of all: averting climate disaster.
Tessa Khan is a lawyer and the executive director of the climate action organisation Uplift
