More drilling won’t fix Britain’s latest energy crisis

Calls to “get drilling” may sound like common sense amid the crisis in the Middle East – but they won’t bring down bills. The real solution lies in green energy.

The North Sea is running out of oil and gas anyway. Pic: Unsplash

No sooner had the U.S. and Israel started bombing Iran than a choir here in Britain struck up a familiar tune: If only we would drill more oil and gas in the North Sea, they sang, we would be spared these global shocks sending energy bills into orbit. Or as a Daily Express headline put it: “GET DRILLING TO STOP SOARING BILLS.”

Politicians on the right have been quick to echo the point. Reform UK’s Robert Jenrick argued for ending “net zero madness” and drilling “unapologetically” in the North Sea, while Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch claimed high bills reflect the fact that “we are not drilling our own oil and gas,” blaming “eco-warrior cabinet ministers.”

There’s something plausible-sounding about this argument. If we’re worried about oil supplies from war-prone areas of the globe, shouldn’t we extract more of it here at home? But it isn’t the miracle cure this “coalition of the drilling” would have you believe.

First, oil and gas are traded on global markets, that’s why a crisis in Ukraine or the Strait of Hormuz spikes oil and gas prices everywhere. We could be swimming in oil and still pay more on our energy bills.

Second, the North Sea is what’s delicately called a “mature basin”. In other words, it’s running out of oil and gas. Production reportedly dropped 75 per cent between 1999 and 2024. Analysis by Carbon Brief estimates that gas production will be down 99 per cent in 2050 compared to 2025, and that if the fossil fuellers get their wish and the government approves new licences, this falls to a mere 97 per cent. There’s no point having a licence to drill for something which isn’t there.

Meanwhile, oil fields discovered now would not start producing oil for around ten years, which is hardly a quick fix.

It’s true that the UK imports a lot of its gas (around 40 per cent). But most of this comes from Norway and the United States, which, at time of writing, are UK allies. About one per cent comes from Qatar.

The case for clean power

Labour appears to be more of the view that the current unpleasantness in the Middle East (enthusiastically supported, incidentally, by Reform and the Tories) is our cue to rely a little less on fossil fuels, and a lot more on renewable energy.

If we really wanted to cut people’s bills, we could insulate their homes and install heat pumps. Wind and solar power are consistently the cheapest form of energy. Analysis by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit [ECIU] suggests renewables have already cut UK wholesale electricity prices by a third in 2025.

While the North Sea is running dry, 92 per cent of new global electricity production in 2024 came from renewable energy. And as politicians debate whether to raise fuel duty by 5p, the exploding price of petrol has electric vehicle drivers feeling even more smug than usual.

Switching to clean power would have the added benefit of slowing climate change, which – as people somehow forget – is the reason we have a net zero target in the first place.

Speaking of costs, a new report by the Climate Change Committee finds that the entire cost of cutting UK carbon emissions to net zero by 2050 would be less than a single fossil fuel price shock. We’ve seen two such shocks in the past four years (Ukraine in 2022 and Iran now).

Naturally this is all opposed by Nigel Farage’s Reform party and the Conservatives, who under Badenoch have embraced climate crisis denial.

It’s worth noting that both parties receive significant funding from donors with interests in high-carbon industries, or who don’t think there’s a climate problem. Over the past two decades, the Conservative Party has accepted £7.2 million from senior figures at the Global Warming Policy Foundation [GWPF], the climate denial outfit set up by Nigel Lawson, which was against net zero before it was Tory policy.

As DeSmog has reported, Badenoch’s energy spokesperson Claire Coutinho has been laundering policy papers from the GWPF and other shady quarters, including U.S. think tanks in receipt of oil money. And Reform, which spooked the Tories into dropping their previous support for net zero, is largely funded by polluters and deniers.

The same can be said of think tanks like the Institute of Economic Affairs [IEA], and the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, which also jumped on the bandwagon calling for new oil. IEA energy analyst Andy Mayer said the war meant the UK should ditch its net zero targets and get fracking. The TBI’s senior policy advisor Tone Langengen, writing in the Daily Mail, said the government should “rethink” its ban on new oil and gas exploration licences. As Greenpeace Unearthed revealed, the IEA received funding from BP every year from 1967 to at least 2018. And the Tony Blair Institute is paid to advise Saudi Arabia and the UAE, two of the world’s leading oil producers.

This brings us to another good reason to cut back on fossil fuels: it would end the energy monopoly held by dictatorships in Russia and the Gulf. There’s a risk all this chaos and the resulting focus on bills leads to even more turning inwards, at the expense of a more international view. Might there not be common cause between small-d democrats in Europe, the Middle East and the UK, against petrostate autocrats and fossil fuel oligarchs?

New analysis has revealed that the politicians on the right who are anti- zero are out of step with public opinion, as rightwing media narratives are fuelling a “false backlash” against climate action. The choice facing Britain is an energy system that leaves us exposed to global shocks, or building one that brings bills down and reduces dependence.

Of course, clean power isn’t a miracle cure either. Renewable energy forms are still businesses run for profit. And the solar, wind, and EV market is currently dominated by the dictatorship in China. But that’s not a defence of the status quo. A global movement for human rights, democracy and green power might sound wildly romantic. But it can’t be as pie-in-the-sky as the alternative vision being offered to us, of a nightmare of resource wars led by flag-waving racists.■

About the author: Adam Barnett is UK News Reporter at DeSmog and a freelance journalist. He writes a politics column for the Big Issue and has reported for The Guardian and Private Eye.

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