Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has vowed to rip up all net zero rules for oil and gas firms drilling in the North Sea if her party wins the next election.
In a hard pivot from existing climate policy, the Conservative leader said: “We will focus solely on maximising extraction. We want all our oil and gas out of the North Sea.”
She said net zero requirements are pushing up household energy bills, hitting families already struggling with rising costs.
Badenoch added: “It’s absurd that we are leaving vital resources untapped while neighbours like Norway extract them from the same sea bed.”
The plan would axe the need for producers to cut emissions or develop low-carbon tech such as carbon capture.
Her comments echo Donald Trump’s rallying cry to “drill, baby, drill” and mark a clear shift from Joe Biden’s clean energy push under the US Inflation Reduction Act.
Earlier this year, Badenoch said reaching net zero by 2050 — a legal UK target — was “impossible”. Now she’s going further by calling decarbonisation efforts a drag on the economy.
David Whitehouse, boss of Offshore Energies UK, backed domestic production but called for balance.
“The choice is clear – do we prioritise our homegrown energy or choose to sacrifice our jobs to rely on imports?” he said.
“While we use oil and gas, let us produce it here in the UK responsibly, alongside an accelerated rollout of renewables.”
New research shows 2024 was the first full year where global average temperatures were more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels — breaching the Paris Agreement’s warning line.
The UK is one of 200 signatories to that deal, which aims to limit warming to “well below” 2.0°C and pursue efforts to stay at 1.5°C.
Reform UK has also pledged to axe net zero if elected.
Badenoch says extract North Sea oil to lower prices appeared first on Energy Live News.