Just a few months before the humanity is scheduled to gather in Glasgow to hammer out how , exactly , we ’re going tomeet the Paris Agreement target , Greta Thunberg is calling out the UK government for approve a major new plan to plainly keep on boring .
On Wednesday , Thunbergsharedan article about the UK ’s plans to greenlight a labor in Britain ’s North Sea that would produce 150 million barrels of oil over the next 25 old age . “ The ‘ green industrial revolution ’ is proving to be a huge success … ” Thunberg wrote , referencing the UK’splan , released last fall , to make hundreds of thousands of fleeceable jobs . ( Zing , Greta . )
She ’s right to be incensed . TheTimes clause Greta share , published earlier this hebdomad , reports that the UK is readying to approve an lotion for drilling in the Cambo heavy crude oilfield in the North Sea located off the coast of the Shetland Islands . British oil company Siccar Point Energy would be the majority owner in the task ; its pardner is Shell ’s UK arm , which hasa 30 % post .
Photo: Henrik Montgomery/TT News Agency/AFP (Getty Images)
The UK government is trying to help its oil and gas producers figure out how to live in a mood - constrained earth . The authorities has launched an initiative to aid provider in the North Sea basin , which is creditworthy for 3.5 % of the UK ’s annual greenhouse accelerator pedal emission , reduce emissions in half over the next decade by instituting what it ’s calling “ climate checkpoints ” to check that that new projects are “ compatible with Britain ’s mood variety objective . ” But this unexampled project would exploit a loophole in this effort : Since the well in the Cambo discipline were technically licensed for geographic expedition in the former 2000s , they do n’t involve to go through this checkpoint process for “ new ” projects .
And the Cambo project would be a pretty enceinte climate black eye . According to the proposition , the oilfield would set out producing in 2025 , right at the halfway item of the UK ’s bighearted goal to cut fossil fuel emission in the North Sea . ( Per the proposal , the oilfield would hold on operations in 2050 , hitting Britain ’s deadline for being net carbon neutral aright on the nose . ) The Times estimate that that output alone would emit rough 3.3 million ton of carbon dioxide .
The UK has been brushing up on its climate bona fides before it host the United Nation ’s one-year clime pinnacle screw as COP26 in Glasgow this dip . Prime Minister Boris Johnson made climate alter a key point of discussion at the G7 peak earlier this month ( though it did n’t lead to much action ) . He has also aggressively pushed impressive - sounding goals at home despitesome interior turmoilin executing those goals . COP26 is set to be a crucial summit being the first held since the global pandemic hit . John Kerry , President Joe Biden ’s outside climate consultant , called themthe “ last best hazard the world has to come together so as to do the thing we need to do to avert the spoilt effect of the climate crisis ” earlier this twelvemonth .
But despite the UK ’s keenness to seem like a mood leader on the man leg , it seems that the cautious government may have received some fiscal encouragement to greenlight the Cambo project and potentially approve next ones . The Guardian and Desmog reported this week that individuals and companies with ties to oil and gas interests in the North Seahave given more than $ 556,000to the Conservative party since July 2020 , a period that when the governing was finalize its design to cut emissions from rock oil yield in the neighborhood . The UK ’s Business Secretary Kwasi Kwartengalso fit multiple timeswith diligence leader in the last six months of 2020 , including hosting a “ North Sea Transition Forum ” that representatives from Shell attended .
The International Energy Agencysaid last monththat all new oil and gas output needs to finish by next yr for the world to have any Bob Hope of meeting the Paris Agreement goal . But the UK is n’t alone in speak out of both sides of its mouthpiece on fossil fuel . Shell is involved with the project while alsoinsisting it’s“more determined than ever to play its part ” in meeting the Paris goals while also fight back a rulingby a Dutch courtthat it has to cut its discharge 45 % by 2030 . ( It ’s mussy . ) The Biden governing body , which maintains that mood modification is the “ number one scourge ” facing the mankind , confirmed last month that it would carry on todefend a boring projectin the Arctic that the Trump giving medication sanction . It ’s become a piddling wearing to watch over humanity leaders and companies up their rhetorical ante on climate , while also continuing to just drill , baby , drill . Greta is , as usual , right to call them out .
Carbon neutralityClimate changeGreta ThunbergJoe BidenShell
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