produced just 36 days of gas<\/a>.<\/p>\nTessa Khan, executive director of the renewable energy campaign group Uplift, said approving the licences would suggest that Burnham is \u201cnot taking the interests of ordinary people very seriously\u201d and is instead prioritising \u201cthe interests of very profitable oil and gas companies\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs for our energy security, which is clearly on people\u2019s minds, 80% of the oil we produce in the North Sea ends up being exported,\u201d she added. \u201cThat\u2019s not going into people\u2019s cars or British industry.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is very little oil left in the North Sea and a field like Jackdaw would only make a 2% difference to how much we have to import to meet our gas demands.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the weeks and months that the UK has experienced record-breaking heat, the science is crystal clear. We can\u2019t burn all the oil and gas in existing fields if we are going to stay within safe climate limits.<\/p>\n
\u201cSaying yes to additional fields is really a clear signal that this is a government that isn\u2019t going to take the climate crisis seriously. Given the huge amount of genuine pain, disruption and suffering that the heatwaves caused in recent weeks, that\u2019s a huge mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n
Climate activists stage a \u2018roast against Rosebank\u2019 protest in Parliament Square on 7 July, calling on the government to stop new North Sea oil and gas projects. Photograph: Vuk Valcic\/Zuma Press Wire\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n
Bob Ward, policy director at the Grantham Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, based at the London School of Economics, said: \u201cThe remaining oil and gas is in more inaccessible places. More inaccessible places require higher operating costs. They are only really economically viable as long as consumer prices are high.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt really is locking us into a regime in which one would have to expect high consumer prices. It\u2019s completely perverse to be doing that when we should be focusing on how to get our electricity prices down.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some unions have told Burnham that new licences would send \u201ca signal that the country remains committed to producing, building and manufacturing\u201d.<\/p>\n
However, Lee Hunter, of the Fire Brigades Union, said on Saturday that being called to incidents linked to extreme weather \u2013 such as floods and wildfires \u2013 was becoming the \u201cnew normal\u201d for firefighters.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s why our union is saying no to Rosebank,\u201d he said. \u201cIt would pour more fuel on the fire while doing nothing to bring down people\u2019s energy bills or improve our energy security.\u201d<\/p>\n
Burnham will become prime minister on Monday, when he is expected to set out his policy agenda, including plans to take water and energy companies under public control and initiate a major council housebuilding programme.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andy Burnham risks his first confrontation with Labour MPs if he announces new oil and gas drilling licences…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":698865,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[84,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-698864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=698864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698864\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/698865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=698864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=698864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=698864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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