Britain’s standing as a global climate leader faces a critical test as senior figures in international diplomacy have warned that any move to open new oil and gas fields in the North Sea would deal a severe blow to worldwide efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
The government is facing mounting pressure from the oil industry, the Conservative opposition, Reform UK, certain trade unions and factions within the Treasury to grant new drilling licences. This comes despite research showing that the two largest remaining fields, Rosebank and Jackdaw, would displace just 1% and 2% respectively of the UK’s gas imports, offering negligible benefit to either prices or energy security.
The North Sea basin is now more than 90% depleted, and extracting its remaining pockets of hydrocarbons is becoming progressively more costly and energy-intensive. Yet the political appetite for new licensing persists, placing Ed Miliband, the energy security and net zero secretary, in an increasingly uncomfortable position.
Nicolas Stern, professor at the London School of Economics, cautioned that fresh drilling would be damaging on multiple fronts, bad for growth, bad for energy security and a harmful signal to the international community. Lord Stern pointed to Britain’s track record as the first G7 nation to commit to net zero by 2050 and its influential climate legislation, arguing that the world pays close attention when the UK changes course.
The backlash from the developing world has been particularly fierce. A senior African negotiator, speaking anonymously, said the continent would reject any UK expansion of oil drilling, describing it as fundamentally at odds with the Paris agreement. Mohamed Adow, director of the Nairobi-based Power Shift Africa thinktank, warned that approval of new projects would signal that short-term interests were being placed above long-term responsibility, setting a precedent that could prove impossible to contain.
The timing is especially sensitive. Britain has been one of the principal supporters of a global conference on fossil fuel transition taking place in Colombia later this month. However, Miliband will not attend, with climate envoy Rachel Kyte going in his place, a decision likely to disappoint campaigners who credited the energy secretary with brokering a last-minute deal at the Cop30 summit in Brazil last November.
Christiana Figueres, former executive secretary of the UN framework convention on climate change, acknowledged the geopolitical pressures driving the energy security debate but argued that expanding drilling risked locking in infrastructure that was increasingly out of step with the direction of the global energy system. True energy independence, she suggested, lay in scaling up clean domestic energy rather than prolonging the life of declining industries.
The strategic concern for Britain’s business community is clear. Many developing nations are weighing whether to exploit their own fossil fuel reserves rather than invest in renewables. If they choose the former path, the world would far exceed the carbon limits scientists say are necessary to avert the worst consequences of climate breakdown. A senior development official put the matter bluntly: developing countries are already asking why they should forgo their own resources if the UK will not do the same.
An ally of Miliband defended the government’s position, describing the decision to halt new exploration licences as a landmark stance for a major oil and gas producing nation. A government spokesperson confirmed that clean energy and climate action remained at the heart of the agenda, including what it called a world-leading commitment to stop issuing licences for new fields.
Whether that commitment holds in the face of political and industrial pressure will be one of the defining questions of Britain’s energy policy in the months ahead.
Read more:
New North Sea oil fields would “send a shock wave around the world”, climate experts warn