The UK Authorities has outlined plans to introduce local weather stress exams, which future oil and gasoline extraction initiatives domestically would wish to fulfill so as to go future licensing rounds.
By some estimates, there are greater than 40 new oil and gasoline initiatives within the UK’s North Sea pipeline by to 2025
Printed immediately (20 December) by the Division for Enterprise, Vitality and Industrial Technique (BEIS), the stress test framework consists of six potential local weather circumstances for initiatives.
These embrace whether or not the developer of a particular challenge has met its commitments to scale back emissions; whether or not the sector as a complete has met its commitments to scale back emissions; the UK’s place with reference to grease and gasoline imports; consideration of oblique (Scope 3) emissions from the initiatives and consideration of the ‘international manufacturing hole’.
This latter time period refers back to the international want to scale back fossil gas manufacturing if the Paris Settlement commitments are to be delivered. The UN warned in October that the world is on track to provide round 110% extra fossil fuels in 2030 than what’s suitable with a 1.5C future.
All in all, the proposed stress exams are aligned with the £16bn North Sea Transition Deal which was published earlier this year. The Deal states that the sector ought to halve its emissions by 2030, in opposition to a 2018 baseline. The online discount ought to rise to 90% by 2040 and 100% by 2050, bringing the sector to net-zero.
That Deal was extensively criticised by inexperienced teams, who known as it an excuse for business-as-usual and incompatible with long-term net-zero targets. For the reason that Deal was printed in March, the UK has confirmed its Sixth Carbon Budget, entailing a 78% discount in emissions between 1990 and 2035. BEIS has, due to this fact, mentioned future bids for licences will must be “seen within the context of the Authorities’s wider local weather commitments” than simply net-zero by 2050.
BEIS will seek the advice of on the proposals till 11.45pm on 28 February 2022.
The Division’s Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng Tweeted concerning the session, stating that the Authorities sees the position of oil and gasoline in a net-zero UK as one among “transition, not extinction”.
He wrote: “Turning off the faucets would put vitality safety and British jobs in danger – and go away us extra reliant on international imports”.
The UK is a internet gasoline importer however has lately committed to ending unabated gas-fired electricity generation by 2035 and ending new gas boiler sales for homes within the same timeframe. Inexperienced teams have pointed to those commitments, and to the Worldwide Vitality Company’s (IEA) evidence that no new fossil gas capability might be permitted, as causes for BEIS to go additional than its proposed stress exams.
Greenpeace UK’s coverage director Doug Parr mentioned: “The Authorities has produced some detailed, concrete recommendations for varied exams that is likely to be favoured by business, however not on precise compatibility with the local weather disaster we’re in, the place it’s infuriatingly imprecise.
“An actual local weather compatibility check would convey an finish to new oil and gasoline licences, and speed up our progress in the direction of cleaner vitality and a simply transition for oil and gasoline staff. If the UK desires to make any declare of local weather management, it is onerous to see the way it can do anything. “
Traders ‘shaken’ over Cambo choice
In associated information, the Aberdeen and Grampian Chamber of Commerce, supported by The British Chambers of Commerce and Scottish Chambers of Commerce, have written to ministers at Westminster and Holyrood asking for a “extra reasoned debate” across the position of UK oil and gasoline within the vitality combine within the coming a long time.
The 58 signatories largely signify the oil and gasoline business, so are pushing again in opposition to the IEA’s net-zero roadmap and marketing campaign teams like Greenpeace.
“There isn’t any present future state of affairs the place there’s not a requirement for some oil and gasoline,” the letter states. “… this leaves us with two choices; to provide this domestically, with full management over the regulatory atmosphere during which it’s extracted; or to import an rising quantity of our vitality, with the heavier carbon toll that delivery it from different elements of the world carries.
“The latter makes little financial sense and even much less environmental sense.”
The letter cites the IEA’s assertation that 20 million barrels of oil can be used day by day in 2050, an 80% discount on 2019 letters. It fails to say the Company’s argument that this could all come from current initiatives, with no addition to international capability.
It additionally says that investor confidence in UK oil and gasoline is being “shaken” by choices taken by the Scottish Authorities and by the personal sector following stress from environmentalists. Vitality agency Siccar Level said earlier this month that it’s going to put plans for the controversial Cambo oil subject growth “on pause” after Shell, which had a 30% stake, pulled out. Mates of the Earth and the New Economics Basis claim there are greater than 40 different oil and gasoline initiatives within the UK’s pipeline by to 2025.
Sarah George
