Academics call on PM to end oil and gas exploration

With recent climate events highlighting the worsening impacts of the climate crisis, the cost of delaying mitigation measures is becoming rapidly unsustainable.

The letter, co-signed by 70 leading climate scientists and academics, argues that the remaining carbon budget does not allow for further oil and gas exploration, as highlighted by recent reports of the International Energy Agency, IPCC, and the consensus of the climate science.

For the UK, this has direct consequences for COP26 and the UK’s credibility.

As such, the signees are calling for Mr Johnson to bring forward specific measures to:

• Stop investment and licensing for new oil and gas fields;
• End the policy of Maximising Economic Recovery from North Sea oil and gas;
• Introduce ambitious fossil fuel demand management policies to obviate the risk of future oil and gas imports;
• Ensure a managed and just transition away from oil and gas production, redirect investment towards low-carbon industries, and ensure affected workers are able to transfer smoothly into these new sectors.
• They state that these combined measures will be essential to deliver the 6th Carbon Budget and meet the country’s net zero target.

Mr Ghaleigh, climate law lecturer at Edinburgh Law School, writes: “These combined measures will be essential to deliver the 6th Carbon Budget and meet the country’s net zero target. They are also exactly the sorts of action which the IPCC says will ‘lead within years to discernible effects on greenhouse gas and aerosol concentrations [under which] discernible differences in trends of global surface temperature would begin to emerge from natural variability within around 20 years…’

“It is still possible to act decisively against climate change. Actions taken in the year of COP26 will set the course for a critical decade of action on climate change. The UK has the opportunity to drive the systemic change needed to avoid the worst of climate change and deliver quality jobs and economic benefits.

“The science is clear on the need to end investment in new oil and gas development. Now is the time for bold political action.”