As reported by the FT and many other papers:
New legislation to mandate annual North Sea oil and gas licensing rounds will be at the heart of the King's Speech on Tuesday, as Rishi Sunak looks to exploit a key policy divide with Labour ahead of the next UK general election.
There are three claimed reasons for this policy.
The first is to, supposedly, use UK oil and gas as we transition to sustainability.
That, however, makes little sense when all the oil and gas produced will be traded in international markets, so at best, the aim of the exercise is to support the pound as we transition to sustainability, which is a lot more pragmatic and much less strategic, and considerably more uncertain as an outcome.
Third, the aim is to create a political wedge issue. Far from being green, the Tories are consciously rejecting green policy to differentiate themselves from Labour.
Doing so, as the FT points out, will make remarkably little difference to the overall position of the UK. They note:
However, the North Sea Transition Authority, the regulator, has acknowledged that any new licensing will do little to reduce Britain's dependence on imports or affect prices of oil or gas significantly, given that the basin's reserves are in decline and the commodities are traded on international markets.
I noted recently (and now cannot find the reference to confirm the fact) that over the last decade or so, just nine weeks of UK oil consumption had actually been found in the North Sea. I suspect little more will be on this occasion, so what matters here is not the policy so much as the politics
What are those politics, given the policy is very clearly inconsequential given little or no oil of relevance will be produced? They are, of course, the politics of power in that case. The substance of this issue is almost irrelevant to the Tories. The fact that it will not change the outcome of any energy transition, or support the pound, does not matter. What matters is that the issue can be used to divide society.
There is, of course, a form of politics that is based solely on the creation of division. Its aim is to create barriers where there are none. It wants to demarcate people. The aim is tribal. That form of politics is, of course, fascism in its Italian form, where policy mattered little but power for the corporate state did.
The Tories used race and migration as their primary wedge issue for ages - with the slight problem for them being that they were unable to do anything about an issue they promoted into public consciousness.
Now they see green issues as taking on that role, and so they are piling in for all they are worth. In reality, they have no policy. They have no goals that impact real life. What they are doing is tokenism. But that really does not matter if division is created, because that is all that they feed on.
And what they know is that in a first-past-the-post system that can be enough, which is why anyone supporting that system is a facilitator of fascism.
So, of course, I oppose what the Tories are doing because it is not green. But I also oppose it for a much more important reason than that, given that much of what they are proposing will only have a very marginal impact on the transition that we need. I oppose it because the Tories are using green issues to divide and rule society for the advantage of a few - and that is a much more sinister issue.
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The Americans have devised the term “angertainment” for politicians deliberately incensing voters for voting advantage. Perhaps the British should have their own more accurate term “anger-stoking” since its politicians too appear to spend an inordinate amount of time looking to promote negativity rather than researching and informing the nation about constructive policies that will unify.
Some data from the flowchart on page 8 here. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1174047/DUKES_2023_Chapter_3.pdf
The suggestion is that the UK produces about 38 million tonnes of petroleum and liquified gas in 2022 but exported over 28 million. Another 48 million tonnes of crude oil and NGL feedstocks were imported, and 29 million tonnes of refined petroleum. Even at a gross level, we consume about twice as much as we produce.
Perhaps being self-sufficient and eliminating imports might be an aspiration, if we halve consumption, but do we actually have the capacity to refine and store and then use all of our production? And if this is about UK energy security, perhaps all UK petroleum industry – upstream, midstream and downstream – needs to be nationalised.
I think the UK’s natural gas storage capacity is currently about 12 days. That leaves us horribly exposed to market forces. In Germany it is nearly 3 months.
There doesn’t seem any point to this legislation as a new Labour government could ensure no new oil or gas fields anyway without repealing the legislation. If they wanted to. How? Set the price so high that there are no takers.
I agree creating cultural conflict is this GB government cartel’s life blood but
there may also be some darker atavistic motives.
Here in Northern Ireland, unlike Britain, the environment has little state protection. This is as a result of there being a DUP junta in charge for the past couple of decades. Part and parcel for the good living fundamentalists is a religious ideological hatred of Green politics. They see themselves as a chosen Elect by God and the land and its living ecosystems as created by Him for them to exploit for purely human profit.
I understand there are strong links between this present British government (politically delivered with help of the DUP) and mega wealthy US fundamentalists who share similar beliefs. Some in the US, like the one the new speaker of the US House of Representatives is a member of, even teaching their congregations that all environmentalists are evil being possessed by Satan.
Agreed
Underlying this religious fundamentalism is the desperate desire to be loved, to live in a good enough “prosocial” environment where they get emotional support from others. So lacking this in sufficient psychological quantity on Planet Earth there is a turn to God who does automatically love them unconditionally and will find them a highly prosocial place to be in when they die called Heaven. It never occurs to them that they will have retain consciousness after death to choose the way the “Heaven environment” meets their needs. Just lie there in a cocoon feeling great or being able to walk about enjoying the sights and meeting relatives and friends who got there before them. In other words religious fundamentalism is about being part of a club or a group where individuals feel secure even loved!
I believe it is rather the failure of Government policy to ensure the security of energy supply to the British people, rather than the other issues that is at stake here. Government energy policy has been a disaster across the board, from the fake-market created for monopoly domestic energy supply to UK energy security. But it is the energy security issue, and the scale of the British exposure to the worst of the volatility in international energy markets that is the worst condemnation of Britain’s Conservative Government’s incompetence an gross negligence over the issue. Sunak is using this policy solely to protect the pound and the endemic balance of payments problem, but use it in a confusing Green wrapping, and a vague sense of doing something to create our own energy independent of markets, merely to deflect attention from the real problem.
We did not place a Green agenda and oil at the centre of British energy policy to construct a plan to ensure security of supply, and manageable prices for domestic, commercial and industrial users. We relied on international markets at low prices, and a quasi-just-in-time supply network to provide Britain’s energy. We let the market do it all; and the market failed catastrophically: again.
Covid, Ukraine war and the cost of living crisis has merely exposed the huge hole at the centre of British policy. No redundancy in the supply system. Inadequate gas storage. One example provides the proof of failure on an epic scale. In February, 2022 British Government policy was full of bluster about how we were tough with Russia, and applying sanctions across the board. So what do we find? This is from the House of Commons Library, Import of fossil fuels from Russia, dated March 2023:
“In 2021 imports from Russia made up 4% of gas used in the UK, 9% of oil and 27% of coal. In 2021, imports of gas, oil and coal from Russian to the UK were worth a combined £4.5 billion. This fell to £2.2 billion in 2022 and £1.3 billion in the year to January 2023”.
Converting that fall in imports, means we are still importing about 29% of the oil and gas we were importing before the war, even from Russia; either in volume or price. So much for the security of our supply. So much for the security of the British public in the secure provision of affordable energy.
40 years ago Arthur Scargill described Tory energy policy as “the economics of the mad house,”
Whilst we now know coal was not and is not the answer his essential point – that dismantling and shutting down the UK’s own energy infrastructure in favour of importing from the international market – was and is an unmitigated disaster
But why not take this head on? Its such a pathetic desperate way to promote division where none exists.
Multiple oil and gas licences issued – yet an absolute zero on off-shore wind in this last year’s auction.
As I understand it the public do want a massive increase in the adoption of renewable energy – its an open goal for Labout which, as with many other issues they seem reluctant to take.
Why does anybody listen to Keir Starmer anymore? I note he’s now hidden behind David Lammy (shadow Foreign Secretary) because he got burnt on the Israeli/Palestinian ceasefire. Like all bullies he can’t own his behaviour when it turns sour!
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/nov/04/gaza-siege-conditions-unacceptable-says-lammy-as-labour-toughens-line-on-israel
Charles has advocating green causes since the days when they were a very minority interest. So could he refuse to deliver a “King’s Speech” so clearly opposed to his principles? Or is C3R just an obedient protocol droid now?
Actually I suppose if Charles did object, the resulting hoo-hah would be an even more effective “dead cat” to distract us all!
It isn’t extracting gas and oil that is responsible for CO2 generation it is use of those fossil fuels. What is needed is a credible and achievable plan for the country to transition from where we are now to a future where energy comes from renewable sources.
Although it creates a bad look, I have no real issue with continuing to extract fossil fuels domestically as long as the amounts are consistent with a rigorously planned declining usage. Yes, in practice those fuels will be traded as part of an international market, but if we continue to use them they will still be extracted, just in Saudi Arabia – or Russia.
A reality check on new oil & gas reserves, it takes around 17 years to go from starting work to steady state production. To all the investors out there I suggest that you will not get your money back. Either because of being shut down to comply with global warming or because of global warming disasters.
This is clearly seen as a wedge issue by the government and they are playing to their base, but this is a mistake, unless they have already given up on the next election.
The one thing I can not understand in any of the interviews with ministers or government spokespeople is that no one I have seen has asked the simple question, will this policy increase or decrease the total amount of carbon used in the world and if this is good for the UK (which it is not), it must be good for every country with oil and gas deposits to maximise their extraction and use, so how will this help to meet the COP agreements be achieved?