Newly Licensed North Sea Oil & Gas Fields Would Produce As Much CO2 As All UK Homes Put Out In 30 Years

Potential new North Sea oil and gas fields with early stage licences from the UK would emit as much carbon dioxide as British households produce in three decades. The finding has led to calls to the government to reject demands from fossil fuel producers for the final permits needed to allow their operations to go ahead.

Dozens of small potential sites, and several controversial large projects such as the Jackdaw and Rosebank fields, have received some form of licence, though they are not yet operational. If they all went aheadthe resulting emissions would have a global impact on the ability to stave off catastrophic levels of climate change, according to research by the campaigning group Uplift.

Sites that have been licensed for drilling but have not yet been developed are estimated to hold up to 3.8bn barrels of oil equivalent. If burned, this would release 1.5bn tonnes of carbon dioxide. Emissions from the UK’s 28m households amount to about 50m tonnes a year.

Tessa Khan, executive director of Uplift, said: “The scale of the planned drilling by fossil fuel companies in the North Sea is alarming. How can it be right that, while we strive to reduce our climate impact – and household emissions fall from people installing solar panels and switching to heat pumps – the oil and gas industry is given a free pass to generate massive emissions?”

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/dec/20/north-sea-oil-gas-fields-co2-emissions-uk-licence