The UK government is about to bring through legislation for an annual licensing programme for oil and gas in the North Sea.
To justify this shift in policy towards fossil fuels, ministers have made a number of claims about the impact on climate breakdown and UK bills, as well as whether it is in line with recommendations from its independent climate advisers.
Here, the Guardian factchecks some of those claims, including whether new oil and gas licensing is in line with our climate targets, and whether it will lower bills.
Claim: more North Sea oil and gas will benefit households and lower bills
The prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has linked his fossil fuel policy to lower energy bills. He has said: “Putin has weaponised energy supplies, causing household bills to soar … I’m taking action to drive down energy prices.” In the press release about the new bill, the policy is linked to “benefits for households” and “lower bills”.
But Claire Coutinho, the energy secretary, has admitted the policy won’t bring down bills. She said: “It wouldn’t necessarily bring energy bills down, that’s not what we’re saying, but it would as I say raise a significant amount of money that would help us, for example, fund public services, also fund transition into different forms of energy, for example, things like offshore wind and solar energy, which more broadly and indirectly could help bring bills down.”
Jess Ralston, the head of energy at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) said: “The fact is that most of what’s left in the North Sea is oil, which we export the vast majority of to be refined and then import back at market prices – so it doesn’t help to lower bills.”
Claim: It will help UK energy security
This is often cited as the reason for “maxing out” the North Sea. Ministers have also criticised the Labour party for not voting for new oil and gas exploration, accusing them of putting energy security at risk by doing so.
But the oil and gas produced in the North Sea is owned by private businesses – it will be sold on the international market and does not go directly to UK businesses. The new Rosebank oilfield, for example, will be operated by the Norwegian firm Equinor.
The former Cop26 president, Alok Sharma, explained: “The government has said this bill is about protecting energy security. But the reality is, the oil and gas extracted from the North Sea is owned by private companies – the government doesn’t get to control who they sell to.”
Claim: The Climate Change Committee allows for more oil and gas extraction
Coutinho and the energy security department have repeatedly suggested the government’s independent climate advisory board has allowed for more oil and gas extraction in it recommendations.
She has said: “We will not play politics with our energy security. Even the independent CCC has said that in 2050, we will need oil and gas for a quarter of our energy.”
This statistic is incorrect. A spokesperson for the CCC said: “The data is used from our sixth carbon budget but they used their own calculation to get to that.” It is understood the committee does not endorse the 25% figure. The government has repeatedly refused to disclose the methodology behind this figure, which appears to come from the oil and gas industry.
Jeremy Hunt also suggested the CCC allows for more oil and gas extraction. He told the BBC’s Today programme on Saturday: “The independent panel for climate change that we have for this country are very clear that even when we reach net zero in 2050 we will still get a significant proportion of our energy from fossil fuels.”
The chair of the CCC, Piers Forster, responded to Hunt’s comments on Sunday, tweeting: “Our earlier advice is still current. UK oil and gas consumption needs to fall by over 80% to meet UK targets. This and Cop decision makes further licensing inconsistent with climate goals.” Forster was referencing the Cop28 climate conference decision to transition away from fossil fuels, to which the UK has signed up.
Claim: UK oil and gas is four times cleaner than that from abroad
Rishi Sunak has told journalists that producing natural gas in the UK is “better for the climate” than importing it because it’s “far better to have it here at home rather than shipping it here from halfway around the world with two, three, four times the amount of carbon emissions versus the oil and gas we have here at home”.
This figure comes from the North Sea Transition Authority, but the Channel 4 factcheck service found that its calculation did not include emissions produced by burning the gas, which makes up the vast majority of its footprint. When these are taken into account, the factcheck service found that “imported gas is about 17% more polluting than gas from the North Sea,” rather than 400% worse.
