Image credited to Dazman from the IStock/Getty images
The Government’s approach to securing the UK’s energy future is crazy! Downgrading renewable energy in favour of oil and gas is going to add to global warming! It will make climate change worse!
In the BBC Countryfile episode 48 released just before Christmas, Tom Heap investigates the reaction of the UK Government to the energy crisis. As many other organisations have done he questions the Government policy of incentivising energy companies to invest in new fossil fuel projects in the North Sea – despite the fact that the UK is supposed to be reducing its carbon emissions and moving over to clean energy.
You can see the BBC Countryfile episode by clicking HERE Start at 12 mins 20 secs
Tom interviews Barnaby Wharton, Head of Policy at the industry body Renewable UK against the background of the the oil and gas industry getting tax breaks for new investment:
The interview reveals that if you are building, for example, a wind farm to connect to an offshore oil or gas platform to decarbonise that platform systems you can get a tax break. But if you’re building a wind farm to connect directly to the national grid to support consumers and their bills, you don’t get any tax break. This is bonkers!
In the programme the Government’s financial logic, if you can call it that, is questioned by Senior Economist Stuart Adam of the Institute for Fiscal Studies who says Earlier in the year, the Government announced the introduction of the so called ‘Energy Profits Levy’, widely referred to as a ‘windfall tax’, which is imposes a high tax rate on profits from North Sea oil and gas production, but also included an ‘investment allowance’, which was extremely generous, extraordinarily generous in how much it allowed companies to deduct from their tax bill when they invested in North Sea oil and gas. The result of that is that if a company invests £100 pounds, it only costs £9 – the Government covers the other £91!
Tom Heap also interviewed Emma Brown of Just Stop Oil. She says “The Government are not listening to their own advisers. They’re not listening to the UN International Energy Agency. They’re not listening to their own climate change committee”. She adds “Oil and gas is sold on a global marketplace to whoever is the highest bidder. It doesn’t give us energy security.”
The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the International Energy Agency have both warned we shouldn’t drill for new oil and gas fields if we want to hit climate change targets.
Last October the Guardian reported that the North Sea Transition Authority has begun a process to award more than 100 licences to companies hoping to extract oil and gas in the area. Almost 900 locations are being offered up for exploration.
The above image links to the Guardian article
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