Burnham sticks to net zero after Jackdaw gasfield green light

Andy Burnham has vowed he will not “abandon the responsibility” of fighting the climate crisis after the government approved the Jackdaw gasfield, pledging to block new North Sea licences and keep Britain on track for net zero by 2050.

In an article for The Guardian the prime minister insisted determination on the climate target was “unwavering”, even as industry, political opponents and some Labour MPs pressed him to water down manifesto promises on oil and gas licences. He said he was conscious of “acute global instability” affecting energy security and wanted oil and gas workers treated with more dignity, yet that would not stop the government abiding by its climate targets.

“Britain has just emerged from its hottest summer on record, during which we had nurses collapsing on hospital wards, bus drivers working in intolerable conditions and families losing everything to wildfires,” Burnham wrote. “More extreme weather is forecast in the months ahead. The climate crisis is no distant threat. It is here, on our doorstep, affecting people’s lives and livelihoods. I am personally committed to confronting it, and I will not abandon the responsibility we have to future generations.”

He framed the Jackdaw decision as a transition “on our terms”, giving workers a path to new jobs and using homegrown rather than imported gas. “At a time of acute global instability, it makes sense to responsibly use our resources here at home. Gas from this field will begin heating our homes and powering our businesses this winter.” He said he had been moved by the plight of oil and gas workers in Aberdeen and would not be “so careless with people’s lives” after deindustrialisation left places behind.

Britain needs reliable power and heating that ordinary households can afford. Homegrown gas that keeps the lights on this winter is not a betrayal of the country; it is basic common sense when global supply lines look shaky. Voters who want Britain to run its own energy policy will judge ministers by bills and jobs, not by lectures about consensus.

Rosebank decision and the energy wealth fund

Energy secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh insisted she alone would decide whether to approve the Rosebank oilfield, a call sources say she is minded to block, and dismissed speculation that Burnham or the chancellor would make the final call. “[It] sits heavy for such a big controversial decision because, in the end, only I can make it. And if it is overturned by other colleagues, all that means is we’re going to be overturned in the courts. So we will do the process and we will do it properly.”

Chancellor John Healey has said he expects “oil and gas” revenues to contribute to a new energy wealth fund. Fahnbulleh said she bore the legal responsibility to ensure the UK did not violate its climate commitments. Burnham called that fund long overdue — “something that, frankly, should have happened more than 40 years ago” — to convert North Sea tax revenues into clean energy programmes.

Fahnbulleh said the private sector had invested £100bn in clean energy in the last two years and called it a huge opportunity for parts of the country left behind, while adding that people need to see real jobs, not just promises. She said she was “really concerned” and “quite sad” about the breakdown in consensus on the climate crisis, aiming fire at Reform and the Conservatives, and argued that even those who “don’t care about climate” should care about livelihoods and communities.

Original source: The Guardian