Party leader Kemi Badenoch pledges to remove all emissions reductions requirements for the sector and extract ‘all our oil and gas’ to make energy more affordable. 

Should the Conservatives win the next general election, the focus would be on accessing the remaining fossil fuel resources from the North Sea bed, emphasising previous statements which branded Net Zero by 2050 as an impossible goal. 

In a speech made in Aberdeen yesterday, Tuesday 2nd September, Badenoch also suggested policies around carbon storage technologies would also be abandoned. The Tory chief branded the current policy — which involves capturing carbon dioxide from manufacturing and other processes, then transporting this to industrial areas — as ‘absurd’. Meanwhile, neighbouring countries such as Norway continue to extract energy sources.

The proposal continues a trajectory which began with then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak granting 100 new drilling licenses for the North Sea in 2023. At the time he claimed this was ‘entirely consistent’ with net zero commitments, much to the dismay of campaigners and climate scientists. Since then, in the US President Donald Trump has begun to divest from vast swathes of US environmental protection and emissions reduction projects, reversing previous Commander In Chief Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which saw billions poured into clean energy.

Earlier this year, Reform UK swept to victory in a number of local elections, with grave consequences for climate projects — and carbon reduction in particular — across all constituencies they now hold power in. They also pledged to completely abandon net zero, sparking a number of think tanks and research organisations to present compelling evidence as to why this could cost Britain tens of thousands of jobs and inward private investment. Any rollback in the UK’s emissions reduction schemes would threaten legally binding emissions targets which have been upheld by consecutive governments after Theresa May and the Conservatives intoduced them in 2019.

Image: Guillermo Latorre / Unsplash

More Energy & Net Zero: 

Retailers could lose £146m per year without net zero adaptation

MPs speak out on urgent need for electricity tax reform

200 jobs, £2m per year for Redcar from advanced BESS project