Page 11 - Euroil Week 32 2021

EurOil POLICY EurOil
“People across the North East will be appalled to hear that Keir Starmer is happy to throw away their livelihoods by agreeing a hard-edged time- table to shut down the North Sea sector,” he said. “Labour’s plans would risk the 100,000 jobs that depend on our vital oil and gas industry.”
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has received a letter signed by 80,000 people calling for his administration to block the Cambo field, although the leader claimed on August 4 in an interview with the BBC that he had no knowl- edge of the project.
The Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) that dominates the Scottish Parliament also criticised Starmer.
“Keir Starmer is renowned for fence-sitting so using words like ‘hard edge’ without providing any explanation of what he means is just the lat- est insulting example that fools no one,” he said.
Meanwhile, industry lobby Oil and Gas UK (OGUK) warned that “announcing a prema- ture end to UK-produced oil and gas wouldn’t just harm people’s jobs and the country’s energy security, it would undermine the home-grown transition we all want to see.”
OGUK stressed that oil and gas companies would play a crucial role in scaling up renewable and low-carbon technologies that are needed for the UK to reach net zero by 2050. The industry
has often argued that oil and gas development must continue to ensure energy security during the transition, and generate the earnings that companies can use to invest in less-lucrative clean technologies.
“That’s why it’s so important that all parties, unions and industry work together construc- tively to manage a just transition that ensures energy communities and the hundreds of thou- sands of people who rely on oil and gas for their livelihoodsarenotleftbehind,”OGUKsaid.
The UK’s independent Climate Change Committee (CCC) admitted earlier this year that demand for oil and gas was projected to decline at a slower rate than production. The CCC cited this as justification for fast-tracking the shift away from oil and gas in the UK’s energy system, although the industry says this justifies increased development.
Similarly to the UK, Norway’s government has said it expects to continue issuing oil and gas exploration licences for many years to come, even as it invests more in renewables, carbon capture and storage (CCS), hydrogen and greater energy efficiency. In contrast, Denmark’s parliament already decided to end licensing last year, and other countries in West Europe such as Ireland and Spain have taken similar steps.™
UK tribunal orders CCC to publish energy transition calculations
UK
In its ruling, the tribunal noted that the CCC
said it was unable to provide the calculations following a request by Montford, six weeks after the committee’s net-zero report had been published, as
they had already been deleted.
THE UK’s Information Tribunal has ordered the independent Committee on Climate Change (CCC) to publish the calculations it used to make its claim that the UK economy could be decarbonised at only a modest cost.
The CCC’s cost estimates for the energy tran- sition were presented to the UK’s parliament ahead of the government enshrining its net-zero emissions target for 2050 in law in June 2019. But Andrew Montford, deputy director of the Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF), brought a case against the CCC over their claims, and the tribu- nal has subsequently ordered the committee to show its calculations.
In its ruling, the tribunal noted that the CCC said it was unable to provide the calculations fol- lowing a request by Montford, six weeks after the committee’s net-zero report had been published, as they had already been deleted.
“The issues raised by Mr Montford are mat- ters of important public debate,” the tribunal said. “We accept that there is a very strong public interest in the disclosure of information which can inform that debate, and which can cast light on the decision-making processes of the
government, in particular in areas which have an impact on the environment and are therefore governed by the presumption of disclosure.”
“By arguing that it has overwritten and erased the spreadsheet data, the CCC has essentially admitted that its internal processes are a sham- bles,” Montford said in a response to the ruling. “This is not a competent organisation and parlia- ment needs to investigate as a matter of urgency. If they can’t even manage simple matters of data retention, what hope is there that they can pre- pare a plausible costing of a multi-trillion pound project such as the decarbonisation of the UK economy.”
In the case, the CCC also noted that its cost estimates do not cover how much funding would be required between 2020 and 2049 but only the residual amounts necessary in 2050. The GWPF argues that this was not made clear to MPs when they agreed to make the net-zero target legally binding, and they were therefore misled.
The forum has criticised many of the gov- ernment’s climate policies, arguing that it is not being honest with the UK public about the cost of the energy transition.™
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