Agreed.  It's almost like the Labour party don't want to win in Scotland.

So why hasn’t it been done until now? The green lobby isn’t really listened to in the U.K. most of the time. Nobody really cares about ecology vs inflation. It’s not, oh, just another culture war issue?

Would you like a licence to spend several hundreds of millions of dollars drilling?

What, in a country that has a fiscal regime for hydrocarbons less stable than most third world oil rich shitholes.  I'll pass thanks.

Do renewables actually work? Will they be able to replace fossil fuels (with maybe a bit of nuclear thrown in) altogether?

That's the elephant in the room here

Until we can find an effective way to store the power generated, I can't see oil and gas drilling stopping in any real sense of the word

Can't even see the petrol and diesel car ban proceeding in 2030 tbh. Where are all the electric cars? Where are the chargers? Everyone still buying petrol and diesel ones

Well my renewables are going to work great and include storage so can't be that hard to scale up.  It does also require a better system though for encouraging individuals to take their own measure as most of my first year of savings will be blown on the cost of just getting planning.

Everyone I know is going electric and certainly my next car will be.

we already have in producing fields more oil and gas than we can burn if we want to avoid even relatively catastrophic climate change

giving people the rights to develop and then produce from new fields it the opposite of what we need to be doing

it's pretty simple really

also, what buzz said

the north sea is expensive, mostly drilled out and subject to vastly unpredictable tax arrangements

Electric cars are currently a smug middle class luxury only, not a mass market purchase. Most people (myself included) don't have driveways for a charger. The % of EVs sold is laughably small considering they're meant to be the only option in a few years. The price of secondhand ICE cars has shot up to ludicrous levels when they're meant to be being banned...

Just seems that it's never going to really happen atm

Storage is very hard to scale up, that's the reason why we are still so dependent on fossil fuels despite renewable tech being actually pretty long established now with (in the UK) a fair bit of infrastructure in place

That and the lack of nuclear which for some (most likely idiotic) reason green zealots can't countenance as part of the solution

“Do renewables actually work?”

R U from 1972? Yes of course renewables work. 

The OP has some degree of a point that we will be reliant on some supple of O&G for decades yet, and should aim to be self sufficient in that, as evidenced by recent events.

Norway are also awarding new oil and gas contracts, because they’re not stupid

Electric cars are absolutely a mass market item and not in any way a luxury, hope this clarifies.

"Do renewables actually work?" LOL

Certainly a lot of wind at the moment

https://grid.iamkate.com/

That and the lack of nuclear which for some (most likely idiotic) reason green zealots can't countenance as part of the solution

This really grinds my gears.  We don't even know how to build them any more.  Massive nuclear power plants everywhere please.

nobody knows how to build them any more except maybe the chinese 

everyone thought the french knew, but turns out even they’ve forgotten 

It's ok, the very helpful Chinese people will happily build them for us.

we already have in producing fields more oil and gas than we can burn if we want to avoid even relatively catastrophic climate change

Is there any reason that we have to use up Saudi oil fields 100% now that they're producing?  Why can't we maintain the transition such that other countries suffer some of the economic burden too?

@Threeepwood  Some oil is easier to get out of the ground that other oil.  Some oil is "dirtier" than other oil (although I'm not sure that has much relative impact on CO2 emissions. 

Sunak/Tories are fibbing about this (not a surprise) because they're saying that its better to use oil from North Sea because it doesn't need to be shipped as far as oil from Saudi/ME does. However, even taking into account the CO2 emissions of shipping the oil, you get a lot more bang for your buck with Saudi/ME oil in terms of amount of oil to be used relative to CO2 emissions in production/shipping than you do with North Sea oil.

I'm not saying that there are not other reasons to use North Sea oil rather than import - given the state of the UK economy/public finances, anything that reduces the trade deficit is likely a good thing. However, it's very disappointing (but not surprising) that media commentators accept the Tory talking points on this without questioning them at all.

Agree with Gaga electric vehicles mostly impractical for mass market. Perfect for those with a drive on which to charge them, and earnings way above average. No one else is very interested, so this makes no sense. Enlighten us?

Electric cars are absolutely a mass market item and not in any way a luxury, hope this clarifies.

It’s just depressing.

Energy policy is obviously complex. But the stated reasons for this decision are obviously false, and actually nonsensical. Sunak should be embarrassed to pretend that granting new O&G licences will HELP meet net zero targets.

It’s more populist, Johnsonian cr@p.

I seem to remember learning that oil from different locations is good for different things, and that North Sea oil was not good for petrol an diesel. 

That was, however, a long time ago, when I had all my own teeth. Well, most of them.

'relatively catastrophic climate change'

How does this happen?

Is there another thread on this?

Not all O&G deposits are the same.  Benj is correct. 

Gaga, your comment on EVs is bullsh!t, and you can see that from the market share Tesla is taking.  

The EV infrastructure is...already there considering it's just the power network.  Installing EV chargers is a piece of p!ss and can easily be scaled by 2030.

Renewables are also cheaper than fossil fuels in a number of jurisdictions.