UK’s NET ZERO PLANS INVOLVE NEW OIL AND GAS !!!!!!

At the heart of the strategy is the intention to unleash a new wave of UK oil and gas exploration – an astonishing and, frankly, dangerous path to take at the height of a climate emergency that is set to deepen year on year, in the absence of massive cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. The government is attempting to justify the unjustifiable by talking up a technology known as carbon capture and storage (CCS), which seeks to apprehend carbon dioxide (CO₂) before it gets into the atmosphere and store it underground (the dangers of which are covered in an article on this site, search Lake Nyos). Nowhere has CCS been tried and tested at the sort of scale that would be required to cancel out the emissions arising from the proposed dash for more gas and oil. More than 700 scientists wrote to the prime minister, asking him to halt the licensing of new oil and gas developments, but we all know that this will not happen as long as the Tories are in power. This and previous Conservative governments have routinely derided the advice of experts. Furthermore, Rishi Sunak and his party remain in thrall to the fossil fuel sector and beguiled by what they see as a CCS get-out-of-jail card that putatively offers the tantalising prospect of being able to continue to extract oil and gas without any downside. It has now been released that Rishi Sunak spent more than £500,000 of taxpayer cash on private jet hire in the space of two weeks.