Miliband overrules officials with immediate North Sea oil ban

15 comments

1. Yes please! Should have never been put forward to be approved in the first place.

2. Probably not great for energy independence but whatever.

3. Why wouldn’t we tap it ourselves and help our own economy?

4. So we pay the US and Qatar instead – and they get the money and jobs, for the same emissions?

   This policy is stupid.

5. Do Just Stop Oil have any demands other than this?

   What will they do now? I

   *Edit: in case that sounds dismissive, i’m way more supportive of JSO than most*

   *Maybe taking action that generates millions of comments of “i agree with the aims/demands just not the methods” makes it easier for someone in power to confidently take that exact same position and decisively act on it?* 🤔

6. The advice given by “his own officials” to a Secretary of State is private. There is no way that the Telegraph or anyone else could know what advice Miliband got from his department on this.

7. Now for the thought experiment that much of this sub will find disagreeable:

   Given that Just Stop Oil started in 2022 – formed in February and active from April, and massively platformed the science-backed position from the International Energy Agency in May 2021 that ‘[no new oil and gas projects are needed](https://www.iea.org/reports/net-zero-by-2050#:~:text=Beyond%20projects%20already%20committed%20as%20of%202021%2C%20there%20are%20no%20new%20oil%20and%20gas%20fields%20approved%20for%20development%20in%20our%20pathway%2C%20and%20no%20new%20coal%20mines%20or%20mine%20extensions%20are%20required)’.

   And Kier Starmer added this ‘no new oil and gas’ commitment to plans it appears [in January 2023](https://www.euronews.com/next/2023/01/20/davos-meeting-britain-starmer-oil).

   What amount of this can be chalked up to JSO?

   Why is it that from May 2021 to April 2022 (11 months) policy didn’t change, but between April 2022 and January 2023 (9 months) it did? Why does it take 20 months to agree with IEA analysis and put it into policy? Did the IEA report fall down the back of the desk or something? Are our policymakers not reading this stuff as it is published?

   We declared a *climate emergency* in 2019, taking *two years* to announce you’re going to do the obviously neccessary thing even after it has been spelled out in big letters clearly for everyone isn’t exactly what I’d call an appropriate tempo for emergency response.

   These radical groups open up the space for ‘sensible’ politicians and groups to admit out loud what they know is needed. In another universe I just don’t see Labour announcing this effectively out of the blue without this issue being forced into the public debate so much. Every time people say ‘I agree with their message but not their methods’ it strengthens mass support for real action, whether people realise it or not.

   Keir wins public support by calling them mendacious little shits, but he also then has policy that would have been considered outlandishly extreme by the mainstream a couple of years ago.

8. Could this already be the ‘Gordon brown sold our gold’ moment of the nascent Labour government? ie Something that will come to be viewed as a significant economic mistake by future analysts?

   I’m optimistic about this government in general, and moving away from fossil fuels, but given the success and vast wealth Norway achieved with their oil, and all the social programmes and green energy that we could fund with the profits, us failing to capitalise on our biggest asset does seem like a worrying own goal…

9. What does this do other than make us even more dependent on oil and gas imports? Is has no effect on demand, a negligible impact on the environment, and quite a serious impact on jobs and tax revenues.

10. Good.

    > His decision to block the licences means that companies will have wasted millions of pounds on preparing their bids, with experts warning they are likely to take legal action as a result.

    boo hoo.

11. The faster we move to renewable energy and the faster we no longer need to give a shit what countries like Saudi Arabia, Russia , Iran and co think , the better.

    The UK should be energy independent ASAP and the best way of doing it is with things that never run out such as nuclear, wind, solar. China themselves are going on a green energy binge like crazy.

12. But the Corbyn nutjobs have been telling me ThEyRe JuSt ReD tOrIeS™

13. Lacking pragmatism will make the country poorer.Explore north sea oil and build sovereign wealth fund.

14. Great news! Ending reliance and complaicense on oil is essential imo for Britain’s energy security and the environment.

15. The amount of nonsense you will read here about this subject is very naive. We will be using fossil fuels for a very long time. Even after net zero deadlines. We will be going into the international market to purchase rather than generating our own or at least benefitting from the income of selling our own into the international market.

    Very naive from miliband