The first new gas and oil exploration and exploitation licenses in the North Sea have been awarded, the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA) said in a press release on Monday, October 30. There are currently 27 of them and represent “the first out of 115 applications”.
Among the companies which have obtained them are the British Shell, the French TotalEnergies and the Norwegian Equinor. They concern “priority areas because they have the potential to enter production more quickly than others”, also specifies the NSTA.
United Kingdom: London wants to revive gas and oil exploitation in the North Sea
This is not a surprise since the British government announced last July that “hundreds” of oil and gas licenses would be granted in the North Sea. The Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, justified it with the objective of guaranteeing the country’s energy security. “Oil and gas currently contribute around three-quarters of national energy needs and official forecasts show (…) that they will continue to play a role in our energy mix for decades to come,” also argues the NSTA.
Putting the brakes on the climate
The environmental NGO Greenpeace denounced these first 27 authorizations this Monday. The government “panders to corporate interests, with fossil fuel licenses that will make no difference to (household) bills, do nothing for energy security and generate even more profits for incredibly rich companies like Shell,” pointed out Philip Evan, a manager of the NGO, in a statement sent to AFP. “The UK is turning into a nation that fuels the climate crisis instead of helping to solve it,” he added.
‘I fear the UK’s climate action will stall this year’, for her part lamented Amanda Blanc, general manager of the British insurer Aviva, who is publishing a report this Monday measuring the progress made by the G7 countries and Ireland in their preparation for climate change. The UK’s lead in transition is “at risk as government focuses more on short-term energy security rather than long-term sustainability”according to a press release from Aviva.
The British government has recently put the brakes on some of its climate commitments. Among them, the reduction by five years of the ban on the sale of new cars running on gasoline or diesel. A set of decisions denounced as electoralist, condemned in economic circles and even within the conservatives in power.
Automobile, energy… The United Kingdom is seriously putting the brakes on its climate ambitions
Licenses validated by the courts
The controversy over these licenses is not new in the United Kingdom. Last year, Greenpeace and the NGO Uplift took action before the British courts to oppose it. A request rejected in mid-October by the High Court in London.
According to a summary of the decision published by the court, the government was notably “entitled to conclude that there was an insufficient causal link” between new licenses “and greenhouse gases from end-use by consumers”. In addition, the judge in charge of the case also considered that the government did not “not acted irrationally when he (…) decided that a new round of authorizations (of hydrocarbon licenses) would be compatible with the United Kingdom’s climate objectives”.
The court also clarified that the decision “is concerned only with deciding questions of law” and not “political, socio-economic or scientific questions”.
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A month of peaceful marches in protest
The Just Stop Oil organization launched a month-long mobilization on Monday against the British government’s new oil and gas projects. The activists, accustomed to punchy actions, said they were ready to march peacefully “today and every day, until the police take action to pursue the real criminals, who facilitate the exploitation of new oil and gas deposits.”
During the first march, this Monday, 62 activists from the environmental group were, however, arrested in London, in front of Parliament. The activists had just started marching, disrupting traffic. According to a press release from Just Stop Oil, which reports 65 arrests, the police positioned themselves across the road to prevent the activists from walking peacefully, and immediately began to arrest them. The conservative government is very angry against this type of shock action, unpopular with motorists, and has toughened the legislation to allow the arrest of activists, giving rise to numerous trials in recent months.
(With AFP)
2023-10-31 01:46:24
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