The UK Government has shocked climate activists across the UK by announcing their intent to issue hundreds of new North Sea oil drilling permits for oil and natural gas. This marks a huge step in the wrong direction in terms of our transition to green energy.
UK prime minister Rishi Sunak was quoted on Monday the 31st of July, 2023 saying “We’re choosing to power up Britain from Britain” when asked to comment on the decision. The justification for issuing the new licences was the utilisation of “carbon capture” in which the carbon dioxide realised In the drilling processed is captured and pumped into a separate reservoir under the sea floor, however this does not stop the release of carbon dioxide when the oil or gas is burned.
Other political factions of the UK parliament have reacted in horror at todays’ announcement, stating that this measure does nothing to mitigate the mounting issues of climate change, with this July being the hottest ever on record. Questions have also been voiced about the validity of carbon storage and whether it can actually provide a long term solution to the issue.
It's clear from the announcement today that the UK has drastically scaled down its ambitions to meet it’s net 0 targets and to help repair the damage we have done to the environment. Instead of investing in new fossil fuel initiatives we should be turning our interest into renewable sources of energy which require significantly less generation costs, along with providing electricity with 0% carbon emissions.