This week Number 10 held an energy summit. It was hosted by Grant Shapps, the Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero, and attended by executives from the oil, gas and nuclear industry, including Shell and BP. “Achieving our goals depends on continued close collaboration with the leaders in the industry,” said Shapps afterwards, with the post-event press release celebrating new investments in oil and gas.
Shell and BP were the first two in a bullet point list of energy company investments, in the same week that they announced another round of enormous profits.
It’s worth noting that both companies also have billion dollar contracts with Infosys, the company owned by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s father-in-law. Sunak’s wife, Akshata Murthy, earned £6.7 million in dividends from her Infosys stock earlier this year.
Here are some other things the government has done in the last week:
- Announced over 100 new oil and gas drilling licences – with the announcement made by Rishi Sunak while touring a Shell gas facility in Scotland
- Announced a review of Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, something they spent £2 billion promoting just two years ago
- Refused to close loopholes in the windfall tax on excessive profits from the energy crisis
- Floated the idea of restricting the use of 20 mph speed limits
- Abandoned plans to make food waste reporting mandatory
- Delayed plans to make producers pay for packaging recycling, something that they announced themselves all the way back in 2018
- Blocked Scotland from introducing a bottle deposit scheme
A number of other environmental policies are facing concerted campaigns against them, as lobbyists see momentum in overturning green policies. They include plans to wind down the use of gas boilers, and plans to phase out petrol and diesel cars by 2030. Some ministers have suggested scrapping all net zero policies entirely.
These measures have broad support from newspapers like The Sun, The Mail and the Daily Telegraph. It was the Daily Telegraph that ran an interview with Rishi Sunak, announcing the review of low traffic neighbourhoods. The Sun is running a campaign that closely mirrors government announcements.
In the course of a fortnight, the government has pretty much abandoned any pretence that the environment and the climate matters. Much of this seems to be a very hasty reaction to a by-election in Uxbridge, which has been dubiously interpreted as demonstrating anti-green sentiment among voters. Whatever the reality of that might be, it feels like a critical point for the environment in Britain.
One thing stands out to me amidst the explicit support for oil and gas: government ministers met with oil industry executives an average of once every two days between January and March this year. Who’s running Britain’s climate policy? If it were the oil companies and the media barons that invest in them, how exactly would it look any different?
The Earthbound Report 