The Tories come out as PRO climate change

[noblegiraffe]

WTF. A series of policy announcements that position the Tories as pro-climate change because they think it won them Uxbridge?

This tweet by Grant Shapps announcing new gas and oil licenses to spite Just Stop Oil is just gobsmackingly awful.

It's not Just Stop Oil who are saying that we can't do this, it's international experts.

"Fatih Birol, the IEA’s executive director and one of the world’s foremost energy economists, told the Guardian: “If governments are serious about the climate crisis, there can be no new investments in oil, gas and coal, from now – from this year.” And that was 2021.

While we watch mainland Europe experience terrible wildfires and storms, with the memory of our own awful heat wave last year fresh in our minds, the government comes up with what they think are funny tweets about how the UK is going to actively contribute to a worsening crisis?

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/18/no-new-investment-in-fossil-fuels-demands-top-energy-economist

Chris Skidmore, a Tory MP who actually cares about climate change has issued a statement condemning this policy being announced while parliament is on recess and has called for an emergency debate. https://twitter.com/cskidmoreuk/status/1685948524033130498?s=61&t=U9XrcF693-JpMxeIueYG7g

I agree with pp renewables has good PR, people don’t think much beyond what it means in terms of practicality

Yes they certainly are but it will be peoples lived experiences that will decide the next GE... Can i get an Ambulance/knee op/GP appointment/carers for relatives... Potholes and inflation....

I'm hoping that these are the last death throws of this awful Govt we ve had
I hope so too, but sadly there's enough of the public who are so foolish that they believed Boris was a good prime minister and Nigel Farage seems like a cracking sort of a man.

They're the people who think that Khalid the neurosurgeon is coming over here, stealing their jobs and housing when they've got no GCSEs and are living in their Mum's spare room at 40.

@AP5Diva and @Middlelanehogger sum it up for me. Look at carbon capture, don’t weaken overall position but taper in measured way, we’re going to need overall security and not hamstring ourselves against what’s coming.

You have to look at what's actually happening.

The primary use of oil isn't fuel, that's just a byproduct of the refining process. We use it to make plastic. Can you imagine the modern world functioning to any degree without it?

No computers.
No phones.
No electrical devices.
No domestic electricity supply.
No reading glasses.
No cars.
No ambulances.
No trains.
No planes.
No bread.
No complex medical procedures.
No TV.
No Internet.
No social media.
No mumsnet!
Very limited clothing.
Very limited sanitation.
Very limited food supply.
Very limited water supply.

What would you replace all of the above with if you were to stop oil?

People say "Just Stop Oil" but it isn't that simple.

Climate Change, the Climate Emergency, if you look behind the rethoric, you will find money. That's the REAL goal, to make money. To construct more efficient revenue streams. That's not a conspiracy theory, it's an economic fact. Look at it this way, if Saddie really cared about air quality in London, if the ULEZ really was about the "environment", then he would have just banned old cars and diesels. But no! as long you PAY you can drive noncompliance vehicles into the ULEZ.

Fifteen Minute Cities, you can travel outside your "sector" as long as you PAY a tax.

Road Pricing, you can be made to PAY more in tax under that system, it's nothing to do with the environment.

Heat Pumps, as long as you PAY you can "enjoy" a cold home and lack of hot water. It will "create jobs" which (oh yeah, silly me) mean MORE people PAY more tax.

If the cause of this "Climate Emergency" is human activity, why are people not calling for a reduction in the human population? That's the obvious solution. But wait, there's no money in that. There's no profit in reducing pollution, but huge profits in making people PAY to continue polluting.

Climate Change has become the "witch hunt" of the 20s, it won't be too long before we have Dunking Stools brought back as an "environmentally friendly" way of punishing the "Climate Deniers".

New oil licences aren't the problem. The problem is the failure to understand the root cause of the problem. We have to drastically reduce the global population. People need to stop having children. They say that the world isn't overcrowded, that the entire population of the earth could fit shoulder to shoulder inside the State of Texas. This might be true, but that just illustrates how devastating we are as a species, if so few people can cause so much damage to a planet wide ecosystem. That's why we simply cannot go on having children in the numbers we have in been doing.

Not having someone to wipe your arse in a care home isn't a good enough excuse to keep increasing the population.

Erm. Wind farms need crude oil refined into lubricant in order to turn. Solar panels need crude oil refined into tough rugged plastic to house photo-voltaic cells in order to exist. Finally, heat pumps need electricity to run- which if you run them off wind or solar still brings you back to crude oil. Which you can drill domestically or import at a higher carbon footprint due to transport emissions.

These licenses don’t allow them to do that. They are specifically to secure a domestic supply.
https://www.oilfieldtechnology.com/drilling-and-production/31072023/hundreds-of-new-oil-and-gas-licenses-to-be-granted-in-the-uk/

Would not be surprised.

May also find intelligent design being taught in school as a viable alternative to evolution

Look at it this way, if Saddie really cared about air quality in London, if the ULEZ really was about the "environment", then he would have just banned old cars and diesels.

Don't know why you're referring to 'Saddie' when ULEZ was introduced by Boris Johnson?

I also don't know why you're suggesting that Just Stop Oil are saying 'No oil at all, therefore no mumsnet' when they're saying no new licenses.

Sad thing is we don't have a strong press. We have a mostly right-wing press that will always cheer them on with culture wars (or anything that keeps their billionaire proprietors or hedge funds happy).

The government hasn’t announced new investments. You are conflating new licenses with new investments. I didn’t say it wasn’t ok for other countries to drill new wells either, I stated that what new investments means in the context in which it was said was new investments mean investments towards increasing oil consumption, especially consumption that burns the oil as that is what causes climate change.

Jeez it's like Don't Look Up was a documentary. "We welcome the new jobs the asteroid will bring".

The government hasn’t announced new investments. You are conflating new licenses with new investments.

So new licenses don't bring any sort of investment in finding new gas and oil? Are you sure?

I’m really excited by the possibilities of hydrogen. There are studies looking at whether we can simply re-use our gas mains to supply hydrogen in the future.

btw, just a smidge over 50% of our electricity comes from renewables now. We passed the 50% mark last year :)

Appreciate the info but people are stuck with lack of knowledge, they don’t read what you post even

Highly amused by the people who think that using oil as a lubricant means that we also have to burn it to generate electricity.

On avg we produce 42% of electricity from renewables, yet bills have sky rocketed,

They’d be higher if it were not for renewables. There are three drivers of the price increases:

• our dependence on imported energy
• the majority of the costs passed on are labour costs to maintain and keel up the infrastructure itself
• spiralling inflation to the above caused by Brexit and the Ukraine war.

We have a duty to the people alive now as well as future generations. More people freeze to death due to lack of heating in this country than die from heat waves due to global warming. Being a northern country, we have been long term shifting to net zero and we are way ahead of the pack when it comes to doing it. If other countries had done as much as we have done already global CO2 emissions would be less than half what they are now.

Greg Hand's myth buster thread from a year ago

https://twitter.com/GregHands/status/1489307808424239109?s=20

Plenty of myths around on energy today.

As Energy Minister, I would like to take on some of these myths.

1st of 4 - are we dependant on Vladimir Putin for gas?

Because Saddie IS responsible for expanding it, he could also scrap it entirely if he really wanted to. Do try to keep up.

Also, I never referred to the protest group JSO, I was referring to the idea that people want to move away from oil entirely, that's not something that is possible to do and maintain current standards of living.

Not in the context in which Fatih Birol was speaking when you re-quoted him out of context. In fact, he was advising countries like the U.K. to seek to replace Russian oil and gas in the near term and was only warning against “new fossil fuels” because not all production licenses actually result in producing oil or gas. It’s a gamble. He was saying, look to expand existing oil fields (if you can) first.

Here is the rest of his advice:

”The world’s leading energy economist has warned against investing in large new oil and gas developments, which would have little impact on the current energy crisis and soaring fuel prices but spell devastation to the planet.
Fatih Birol, the executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), was responding to an investigation in the Guardian that revealed fossil fuel companies were planning huge “carbon bomb” projects that would drive climate catastrophe.

He said countries must seek to replace Russian oil and gas in the near term without damaging their long-term prospects.
“I understand some countries may look at new fossil fuels but they should remember it takes many years to start production,” he said. “[Such projects] are not the solution to our urgent energy security needs and they will lock in fossil fuel use.”

”Companies pursuing such developments could end up with uneconomic stranded assets, Birol warned. “If the world is to succeed in moving to net zero, these projects may fail to recover their upfront development costs,” he said in an interview with the Guaridan.

Soaring global energy prices have led governments to seek new sources of fossil fuels. “I do understand why countries are reacting like this,” he said. “But there is the issue of the time horizon.”

Big new exploratory projects for oil, gas and coal would take years to produce any fuel and could lock in high greenhouse gas emissions for decades, Birol warned.

“The most suitable projects are those with short lead times and quick payback periods, such as expanding production from existing fields,” he said.
Using existing sources more efficiently would also help reduce emissions, Birol noted.

He said governments must also urgently seek to reduce fossil fuel demand, through home insulation, cutting speed limits, making public transport cheap or free and introducing car-free days in cities.
“If we do not have these voluntary measures, I’m afraid that energy rationing may be on the table,” he said.
Birol said unlike in previous oil shocks, such as those of the 1970s, the world now had cheap alternatives available in the form of solar and wind power, which had plummeted in price. This should prompt governments and companies to push harder for renewable energy.
“I believe we have the chance to make this a historic turning point to a cleaner and more secure energy system,” he said. “This is the first time I have seen such momentum behind the change to clean energy.
“The world does not need to choose between solving the energy crisis and climate crisis, we can do both.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/may/12/oil-gas-mega-projects-climate-iea-fatih-birol-carbon-bombs-global-energy-crisis-fossil-fuel

Because Saddie IS responsible for expanding it, he could also scrap it entirely if he really wanted to. Do try to keep up.

Grant Shapps (Tory) forced Sadiq Khan to expand ULEZ as a condition of extra funding.

Also, I never referred to the protest group JSO

I see, so when you referred to "Just Stop Oil" you were actually referring to some other people who actually want to stop all uses of oil. Who are these people?

No new licenses would end up either stopping all oil entirely or pushing all oil to be imported at a higher carbon footprint. Neither is a good solution nor are they necessary to go to net zero to fight climate change.

I do see that and it’s why I try and post visual aids from reputable sources as often as I can.

The point you're missing that the other mn was saying is if Sadiq cared about the environment he has the power the change the ulez scheme to being a total ban on polluting cars with a huge fine if you drive in e.g. £100 like they do in Scotland.

Because £12.50 isn't much of a deterrent really.

It doesn't matter who made who roll out the scheme.

So from what I can gather, the argument is that yes, we will be producing more gas and oil from these fields, but that means that we won't be getting it from elsewhere (e.g. Russia), therefore this doesn't present an increase in gas and oil consumption.

Doesn't that argument rely on production elsewhere being reduced by the amount that will be generated by the extra oil and gas produced by the North Sea?

Rather than the oil and gas elsewhere that was earmarked for the UK now being shipped to people who previously wouldn't have been able to access it because we were buying it?