Tag Archives: fracking

Fracking, the oil price crash, and the ‘greenest government ever’ Updated for 2026

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This month, a powerful article in Nature highlighted yet again that most of the world’s oil, coal and gas needs to stay in the ground, if we want to prevent dangerous climate change.

This is the ‘unburnable carbon’ analysis that President Obama and Bank of England Governor Mark Carney have both made mainstream in recent months.

Related, over the last 6 months the world oil price has crashed, catching almost all economists and analysts by surprise. As well as profound economic effects, this crash affects ‘unburnable carbon’ in two broad and opposite ways.

It’s leading to cancellations of potential fossil fuel projects, as they become less or non-profitable. Great for stopping colossally dirty projects like Arctic oil and Canadian tar sands. And in the opposite direction, it makes oil cheaper, meaning people use it more. Bad for climate, though good for people’s pockets.

How should Governments react to this? A Government who genuinely thought climate change was a global priority would not sit passively by and let these conflicting effects of the oil price crash on climate sweep over us. It would act. Government surveys show the British public want more action on climate change.

Instead, we’re going all out for oil and fracking

Despite this, the sole response to the oil price crash from the UK Government is do the opposite! It announced detailed plans for tax cuts for oil companies to drill another 11-21 billion barrels of oil from the ground – way more than even the three billion barrels in the Government’s Wood Review on offshore oil and gas. Climate change impacts got one sentence of dismissal.

Then last week, it drove through a clause in the Infrastructure Bill – with almost no debate – requiring the UK to “maximise economic recovery” of North Sea oil.

These are crystal-clear examples of how Governments do not yet grasp that climate change requires a comprehensive plan. We can’t just do a little bit on renewable energy and energy efficiency, and think that this means we don’t need to do anything about fossil fuels.

And yet, for every announcement of a new wind-farm, or homes insulated, or rail investment, there is a corresponding – and often larger – Government announcement which makes climate change worse.

For example: £15 billion for new roads; whopping cuts in taxes on profits for North Sea oil drillers; consultations on which new airport to open; tax breaks for new fracking industries. High-carbon infrastructure has recently over-taken low-carbon infrastructure in the Government’s ‘infrastructure pipeline’.

After decades of subsidy, high-carbon industry shouldn’t need any more help. Colossally rich oil corporations know the global oil price yo-yos – they should have saved for this moment in the years when oil prices were over $100 a barrel and their profits were sky-high. But like the banks, they want their bail-out, and they know they will get it.

It’s shameful – that we have leaders who say climate change is desperately urgent, who call for more ambition, and yet who are still so deep in the pockets of fossil fuel companies they will not act and treat climate change as the emergency it is.

They are up-front about it too – the Government’s North Sea oil tax cut consultation is clear on three things – it’s derived in discussion with the oil barons; it’s being fast-tracked at their request; and the consultation primarily wants to hear from them.

Leaked letter shows the real agenda

They’re also not so up-front about it – you can see just how deeply the fracking industry is embedded in Government in this leaked-letter from George Osborne here.

The letter was from George Osborne, sent last September, to colleagues in the Cabinet’s Economic Affairs Committee, setting out how he wanted them to prioritise implementing the recommendations of a Cabinet Office report on how to get the shale gas industry going.

Of real interest here are the agreed plans between Government and fracking company Cuadrilla if their planning permission for fracking is turned down – which is exactly what Lancashire’s planners have recommended councillors to do.

According to the letter It is agreed that “if permission turned down … Cuadrilla to respond to concerns and appeal asap.” When that has happened, the Government will “Prepare PINS to respond promptly to appeal or SoS recovery if appropriate.”

In layperson’s terms, that means the Government will make sure the Planning Inspectorate fast-tracks the appeal or that Communities Secretary Eric Pickles intervenes. This stands in stark contrast to the line taken by the Prime Minister’s official spokesman that such decisions “should be up to local authorities“.

And how were these ‘asks’ made? Has Cuadrilla been meeting Ministers and officials, or has it been a few quiet words in the right ears? For let’s not forget that Cuadrilla’s chairman Lord Browne works in the Cabinet Office as a Non-Executive Director.

Moving to ‘full exploration’

The letter is also very revealing about longer-term plans for “moving to full exploration”. The Government clearly knows it’s losing the argument at the local level. Two recommendations stand out here:

  • “A cross-Government and industry group should be established … to assess the value and viability of focusing on a small number of sites in less contentious locations.”
  • “Public sector land (particularly MoD owned) should be mapped to potential sites and explored for possible concept testing.”

And the Government seems to accept that the bribes – sorry, benefits – it is offering top local communities to accept fracking aren’t working. The solution: it looks like offer them more. They plan to: “examine the nature of benefits to be offered to local communities where shale developments take place.”

They know they’re not winning the wider battle for hearts and minds either, so the Government is going to carry on doing the industry’s PR job and “build on existing network of neutral academic experts available to provide credible evidence-based views of matters of public concern”, and “develop a national communications plan on shale exploration.”

This isn’t the first evidence of collusion. Lord Browne has already intervened with the then chair of the Environment Agency, Lord Smith, to try to exempt Cuadrilla from compliance with drilling waste regulations.

On another occasion, after a separate personal intervention by Lord Browne, Lord Smith “offered to halve the consultation time for a waste permit”, and “agreed to intervene with a county council over Cuadrilla’s planning permission and to identify further risks to Cuadrilla’s plans.”

Here’s how the government should be acting!

Instead of colluding with the fossil fuel industry to increase production, a Government genuinely committed to action on climate change would treat the oil price crash as an opportunity to protect the climate, help consumers and protect jobs. It would say:

  • We need a ‘just transition’ plan to get jobs and growth and industry out of North Sea Oil, and into North Sea Renewables like off-shore wind. There will be no economic devastation as when the coal mines closed. But we need to move away from oil, not prop it up. We will do all we can to help people and businesses build new, clean industries in the North Sea.
  • We will put in place a plan to keep demand for oil low, to help keep prices low, and ensure undrilled oil stays in the ground. We’ll put in place a proper strategy to make public transport, walking and cycling decent alternatives to motoring. We’ll drive far stronger standards on car and lorry energy efficiency. We’ll invest in a national electric vehicle network. We’ll act at EU and International level to persuade our fellow nations to do the same.
  • We will make sure the oil and gas price falls don’t damage the growing renewables industry. We’ll reassure investors by setting a clear 2030 power decarbonisation target, with policies to ensure we meet it.
  • We will reverse our fossil-fuel strategy to “maximise recovery” and focus instead on ‘minimising demand’ – in every part of the economy.
  • We will treat climate change as an emergency, and make tackling it a priority across all departments of Government.

People want more action from Government on climate change. Not less. Not a botched half-plan, and half-truths about their commitment to action.

The inadequate, partial, feeble responses on climate change are yet another expression of why so many people feel alienated from Westminster governments – they do not act on their promises, or sufficiently in the public interest.

It’s election time soon. Which parties will put people’s interests ahead of propping up fossil fuel companies, and put in place a proper plan to tackle climate change?

In short, who will step up and show they are a party worth voting for?

 

 

More information on the impact of the oil price crash on climate change: Friends of the Earth briefing.

Simon Bullock is Senior Campaigner, Policy and Research Co-ordinator for Friends of the Earth UK.

Tony Bosworth is Energy Campaigner at Friends of the Earth UK.

This article is a synthesis of two articles published on the Friends of the Earth Policy & Politics blog:

 

 




389768

Fracking, the oil price crash, and the ‘greenest government ever’ Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




This month, a powerful article in Nature highlighted yet again that most of the world’s oil, coal and gas needs to stay in the ground, if we want to prevent dangerous climate change.

This is the ‘unburnable carbon’ analysis that President Obama and Bank of England Governor Mark Carney have both made mainstream in recent months.

Related, over the last 6 months the world oil price has crashed, catching almost all economists and analysts by surprise. As well as profound economic effects, this crash affects ‘unburnable carbon’ in two broad and opposite ways.

It’s leading to cancellations of potential fossil fuel projects, as they become less or non-profitable. Great for stopping colossally dirty projects like Arctic oil and Canadian tar sands. And in the opposite direction, it makes oil cheaper, meaning people use it more. Bad for climate, though good for people’s pockets.

How should Governments react to this? A Government who genuinely thought climate change was a global priority would not sit passively by and let these conflicting effects of the oil price crash on climate sweep over us. It would act. Government surveys show the British public want more action on climate change.

Instead, we’re going all out for oil and fracking

Despite this, the sole response to the oil price crash from the UK Government is do the opposite! It announced detailed plans for tax cuts for oil companies to drill another 11-21 billion barrels of oil from the ground – way more than even the three billion barrels in the Government’s Wood Review on offshore oil and gas. Climate change impacts got one sentence of dismissal.

Then last week, it drove through a clause in the Infrastructure Bill – with almost no debate – requiring the UK to “maximise economic recovery” of North Sea oil.

These are crystal-clear examples of how Governments do not yet grasp that climate change requires a comprehensive plan. We can’t just do a little bit on renewable energy and energy efficiency, and think that this means we don’t need to do anything about fossil fuels.

And yet, for every announcement of a new wind-farm, or homes insulated, or rail investment, there is a corresponding – and often larger – Government announcement which makes climate change worse.

For example: £15 billion for new roads; whopping cuts in taxes on profits for North Sea oil drillers; consultations on which new airport to open; tax breaks for new fracking industries. High-carbon infrastructure has recently over-taken low-carbon infrastructure in the Government’s ‘infrastructure pipeline’.

After decades of subsidy, high-carbon industry shouldn’t need any more help. Colossally rich oil corporations know the global oil price yo-yos – they should have saved for this moment in the years when oil prices were over $100 a barrel and their profits were sky-high. But like the banks, they want their bail-out, and they know they will get it.

It’s shameful – that we have leaders who say climate change is desperately urgent, who call for more ambition, and yet who are still so deep in the pockets of fossil fuel companies they will not act and treat climate change as the emergency it is.

They are up-front about it too – the Government’s North Sea oil tax cut consultation is clear on three things – it’s derived in discussion with the oil barons; it’s being fast-tracked at their request; and the consultation primarily wants to hear from them.

Leaked letter shows the real agenda

They’re also not so up-front about it – you can see just how deeply the fracking industry is embedded in Government in this leaked-letter from George Osborne here.

The letter was from George Osborne, sent last September, to colleagues in the Cabinet’s Economic Affairs Committee, setting out how he wanted them to prioritise implementing the recommendations of a Cabinet Office report on how to get the shale gas industry going.

Of real interest here are the agreed plans between Government and fracking company Cuadrilla if their planning permission for fracking is turned down – which is exactly what Lancashire’s planners have recommended councillors to do.

According to the letter It is agreed that “if permission turned down … Cuadrilla to respond to concerns and appeal asap.” When that has happened, the Government will “Prepare PINS to respond promptly to appeal or SoS recovery if appropriate.”

In layperson’s terms, that means the Government will make sure the Planning Inspectorate fast-tracks the appeal or that Communities Secretary Eric Pickles intervenes. This stands in stark contrast to the line taken by the Prime Minister’s official spokesman that such decisions “should be up to local authorities“.

And how were these ‘asks’ made? Has Cuadrilla been meeting Ministers and officials, or has it been a few quiet words in the right ears? For let’s not forget that Cuadrilla’s chairman Lord Browne works in the Cabinet Office as a Non-Executive Director.

Moving to ‘full exploration’

The letter is also very revealing about longer-term plans for “moving to full exploration”. The Government clearly knows it’s losing the argument at the local level. Two recommendations stand out here:

  • “A cross-Government and industry group should be established … to assess the value and viability of focusing on a small number of sites in less contentious locations.”
  • “Public sector land (particularly MoD owned) should be mapped to potential sites and explored for possible concept testing.”

And the Government seems to accept that the bribes – sorry, benefits – it is offering top local communities to accept fracking aren’t working. The solution: it looks like offer them more. They plan to: “examine the nature of benefits to be offered to local communities where shale developments take place.”

They know they’re not winning the wider battle for hearts and minds either, so the Government is going to carry on doing the industry’s PR job and “build on existing network of neutral academic experts available to provide credible evidence-based views of matters of public concern”, and “develop a national communications plan on shale exploration.”

This isn’t the first evidence of collusion. Lord Browne has already intervened with the then chair of the Environment Agency, Lord Smith, to try to exempt Cuadrilla from compliance with drilling waste regulations.

On another occasion, after a separate personal intervention by Lord Browne, Lord Smith “offered to halve the consultation time for a waste permit”, and “agreed to intervene with a county council over Cuadrilla’s planning permission and to identify further risks to Cuadrilla’s plans.”

Here’s how the government should be acting!

Instead of colluding with the fossil fuel industry to increase production, a Government genuinely committed to action on climate change would treat the oil price crash as an opportunity to protect the climate, help consumers and protect jobs. It would say:

  • We need a ‘just transition’ plan to get jobs and growth and industry out of North Sea Oil, and into North Sea Renewables like off-shore wind. There will be no economic devastation as when the coal mines closed. But we need to move away from oil, not prop it up. We will do all we can to help people and businesses build new, clean industries in the North Sea.
  • We will put in place a plan to keep demand for oil low, to help keep prices low, and ensure undrilled oil stays in the ground. We’ll put in place a proper strategy to make public transport, walking and cycling decent alternatives to motoring. We’ll drive far stronger standards on car and lorry energy efficiency. We’ll invest in a national electric vehicle network. We’ll act at EU and International level to persuade our fellow nations to do the same.
  • We will make sure the oil and gas price falls don’t damage the growing renewables industry. We’ll reassure investors by setting a clear 2030 power decarbonisation target, with policies to ensure we meet it.
  • We will reverse our fossil-fuel strategy to “maximise recovery” and focus instead on ‘minimising demand’ – in every part of the economy.
  • We will treat climate change as an emergency, and make tackling it a priority across all departments of Government.

People want more action from Government on climate change. Not less. Not a botched half-plan, and half-truths about their commitment to action.

The inadequate, partial, feeble responses on climate change are yet another expression of why so many people feel alienated from Westminster governments – they do not act on their promises, or sufficiently in the public interest.

It’s election time soon. Which parties will put people’s interests ahead of propping up fossil fuel companies, and put in place a proper plan to tackle climate change?

In short, who will step up and show they are a party worth voting for?

 

 

More information on the impact of the oil price crash on climate change: Friends of the Earth briefing.

Simon Bullock is Senior Campaigner, Policy and Research Co-ordinator for Friends of the Earth UK.

Tony Bosworth is Energy Campaigner at Friends of the Earth UK.

This article is a synthesis of two articles published on the Friends of the Earth Policy & Politics blog:

 

 




389768

Fracking, the oil price crash, and the ‘greenest government ever’ Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




This month, a powerful article in Nature highlighted yet again that most of the world’s oil, coal and gas needs to stay in the ground, if we want to prevent dangerous climate change.

This is the ‘unburnable carbon’ analysis that President Obama and Bank of England Governor Mark Carney have both made mainstream in recent months.

Related, over the last 6 months the world oil price has crashed, catching almost all economists and analysts by surprise. As well as profound economic effects, this crash affects ‘unburnable carbon’ in two broad and opposite ways.

It’s leading to cancellations of potential fossil fuel projects, as they become less or non-profitable. Great for stopping colossally dirty projects like Arctic oil and Canadian tar sands. And in the opposite direction, it makes oil cheaper, meaning people use it more. Bad for climate, though good for people’s pockets.

How should Governments react to this? A Government who genuinely thought climate change was a global priority would not sit passively by and let these conflicting effects of the oil price crash on climate sweep over us. It would act. Government surveys show the British public want more action on climate change.

Instead, we’re going all out for oil and fracking

Despite this, the sole response to the oil price crash from the UK Government is do the opposite! It announced detailed plans for tax cuts for oil companies to drill another 11-21 billion barrels of oil from the ground – way more than even the three billion barrels in the Government’s Wood Review on offshore oil and gas. Climate change impacts got one sentence of dismissal.

Then last week, it drove through a clause in the Infrastructure Bill – with almost no debate – requiring the UK to “maximise economic recovery” of North Sea oil.

These are crystal-clear examples of how Governments do not yet grasp that climate change requires a comprehensive plan. We can’t just do a little bit on renewable energy and energy efficiency, and think that this means we don’t need to do anything about fossil fuels.

And yet, for every announcement of a new wind-farm, or homes insulated, or rail investment, there is a corresponding – and often larger – Government announcement which makes climate change worse.

For example: £15 billion for new roads; whopping cuts in taxes on profits for North Sea oil drillers; consultations on which new airport to open; tax breaks for new fracking industries. High-carbon infrastructure has recently over-taken low-carbon infrastructure in the Government’s ‘infrastructure pipeline’.

After decades of subsidy, high-carbon industry shouldn’t need any more help. Colossally rich oil corporations know the global oil price yo-yos – they should have saved for this moment in the years when oil prices were over $100 a barrel and their profits were sky-high. But like the banks, they want their bail-out, and they know they will get it.

It’s shameful – that we have leaders who say climate change is desperately urgent, who call for more ambition, and yet who are still so deep in the pockets of fossil fuel companies they will not act and treat climate change as the emergency it is.

They are up-front about it too – the Government’s North Sea oil tax cut consultation is clear on three things – it’s derived in discussion with the oil barons; it’s being fast-tracked at their request; and the consultation primarily wants to hear from them.

Leaked letter shows the real agenda

They’re also not so up-front about it – you can see just how deeply the fracking industry is embedded in Government in this leaked-letter from George Osborne here.

The letter was from George Osborne, sent last September, to colleagues in the Cabinet’s Economic Affairs Committee, setting out how he wanted them to prioritise implementing the recommendations of a Cabinet Office report on how to get the shale gas industry going.

Of real interest here are the agreed plans between Government and fracking company Cuadrilla if their planning permission for fracking is turned down – which is exactly what Lancashire’s planners have recommended councillors to do.

According to the letter It is agreed that “if permission turned down … Cuadrilla to respond to concerns and appeal asap.” When that has happened, the Government will “Prepare PINS to respond promptly to appeal or SoS recovery if appropriate.”

In layperson’s terms, that means the Government will make sure the Planning Inspectorate fast-tracks the appeal or that Communities Secretary Eric Pickles intervenes. This stands in stark contrast to the line taken by the Prime Minister’s official spokesman that such decisions “should be up to local authorities“.

And how were these ‘asks’ made? Has Cuadrilla been meeting Ministers and officials, or has it been a few quiet words in the right ears? For let’s not forget that Cuadrilla’s chairman Lord Browne works in the Cabinet Office as a Non-Executive Director.

Moving to ‘full exploration’

The letter is also very revealing about longer-term plans for “moving to full exploration”. The Government clearly knows it’s losing the argument at the local level. Two recommendations stand out here:

  • “A cross-Government and industry group should be established … to assess the value and viability of focusing on a small number of sites in less contentious locations.”
  • “Public sector land (particularly MoD owned) should be mapped to potential sites and explored for possible concept testing.”

And the Government seems to accept that the bribes – sorry, benefits – it is offering top local communities to accept fracking aren’t working. The solution: it looks like offer them more. They plan to: “examine the nature of benefits to be offered to local communities where shale developments take place.”

They know they’re not winning the wider battle for hearts and minds either, so the Government is going to carry on doing the industry’s PR job and “build on existing network of neutral academic experts available to provide credible evidence-based views of matters of public concern”, and “develop a national communications plan on shale exploration.”

This isn’t the first evidence of collusion. Lord Browne has already intervened with the then chair of the Environment Agency, Lord Smith, to try to exempt Cuadrilla from compliance with drilling waste regulations.

On another occasion, after a separate personal intervention by Lord Browne, Lord Smith “offered to halve the consultation time for a waste permit”, and “agreed to intervene with a county council over Cuadrilla’s planning permission and to identify further risks to Cuadrilla’s plans.”

Here’s how the government should be acting!

Instead of colluding with the fossil fuel industry to increase production, a Government genuinely committed to action on climate change would treat the oil price crash as an opportunity to protect the climate, help consumers and protect jobs. It would say:

  • We need a ‘just transition’ plan to get jobs and growth and industry out of North Sea Oil, and into North Sea Renewables like off-shore wind. There will be no economic devastation as when the coal mines closed. But we need to move away from oil, not prop it up. We will do all we can to help people and businesses build new, clean industries in the North Sea.
  • We will put in place a plan to keep demand for oil low, to help keep prices low, and ensure undrilled oil stays in the ground. We’ll put in place a proper strategy to make public transport, walking and cycling decent alternatives to motoring. We’ll drive far stronger standards on car and lorry energy efficiency. We’ll invest in a national electric vehicle network. We’ll act at EU and International level to persuade our fellow nations to do the same.
  • We will make sure the oil and gas price falls don’t damage the growing renewables industry. We’ll reassure investors by setting a clear 2030 power decarbonisation target, with policies to ensure we meet it.
  • We will reverse our fossil-fuel strategy to “maximise recovery” and focus instead on ‘minimising demand’ – in every part of the economy.
  • We will treat climate change as an emergency, and make tackling it a priority across all departments of Government.

People want more action from Government on climate change. Not less. Not a botched half-plan, and half-truths about their commitment to action.

The inadequate, partial, feeble responses on climate change are yet another expression of why so many people feel alienated from Westminster governments – they do not act on their promises, or sufficiently in the public interest.

It’s election time soon. Which parties will put people’s interests ahead of propping up fossil fuel companies, and put in place a proper plan to tackle climate change?

In short, who will step up and show they are a party worth voting for?

 

 

More information on the impact of the oil price crash on climate change: Friends of the Earth briefing.

Simon Bullock is Senior Campaigner, Policy and Research Co-ordinator for Friends of the Earth UK.

Tony Bosworth is Energy Campaigner at Friends of the Earth UK.

This article is a synthesis of two articles published on the Friends of the Earth Policy & Politics blog:

 

 




389768

Fracking, the oil price crash, and the ‘greenest government ever’ Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




This month, a powerful article in Nature highlighted yet again that most of the world’s oil, coal and gas needs to stay in the ground, if we want to prevent dangerous climate change.

This is the ‘unburnable carbon’ analysis that President Obama and Bank of England Governor Mark Carney have both made mainstream in recent months.

Related, over the last 6 months the world oil price has crashed, catching almost all economists and analysts by surprise. As well as profound economic effects, this crash affects ‘unburnable carbon’ in two broad and opposite ways.

It’s leading to cancellations of potential fossil fuel projects, as they become less or non-profitable. Great for stopping colossally dirty projects like Arctic oil and Canadian tar sands. And in the opposite direction, it makes oil cheaper, meaning people use it more. Bad for climate, though good for people’s pockets.

How should Governments react to this? A Government who genuinely thought climate change was a global priority would not sit passively by and let these conflicting effects of the oil price crash on climate sweep over us. It would act. Government surveys show the British public want more action on climate change.

Instead, we’re going all out for oil and fracking

Despite this, the sole response to the oil price crash from the UK Government is do the opposite! It announced detailed plans for tax cuts for oil companies to drill another 11-21 billion barrels of oil from the ground – way more than even the three billion barrels in the Government’s Wood Review on offshore oil and gas. Climate change impacts got one sentence of dismissal.

Then last week, it drove through a clause in the Infrastructure Bill – with almost no debate – requiring the UK to “maximise economic recovery” of North Sea oil.

These are crystal-clear examples of how Governments do not yet grasp that climate change requires a comprehensive plan. We can’t just do a little bit on renewable energy and energy efficiency, and think that this means we don’t need to do anything about fossil fuels.

And yet, for every announcement of a new wind-farm, or homes insulated, or rail investment, there is a corresponding – and often larger – Government announcement which makes climate change worse.

For example: £15 billion for new roads; whopping cuts in taxes on profits for North Sea oil drillers; consultations on which new airport to open; tax breaks for new fracking industries. High-carbon infrastructure has recently over-taken low-carbon infrastructure in the Government’s ‘infrastructure pipeline’.

After decades of subsidy, high-carbon industry shouldn’t need any more help. Colossally rich oil corporations know the global oil price yo-yos – they should have saved for this moment in the years when oil prices were over $100 a barrel and their profits were sky-high. But like the banks, they want their bail-out, and they know they will get it.

It’s shameful – that we have leaders who say climate change is desperately urgent, who call for more ambition, and yet who are still so deep in the pockets of fossil fuel companies they will not act and treat climate change as the emergency it is.

They are up-front about it too – the Government’s North Sea oil tax cut consultation is clear on three things – it’s derived in discussion with the oil barons; it’s being fast-tracked at their request; and the consultation primarily wants to hear from them.

Leaked letter shows the real agenda

They’re also not so up-front about it – you can see just how deeply the fracking industry is embedded in Government in this leaked-letter from George Osborne here.

The letter was from George Osborne, sent last September, to colleagues in the Cabinet’s Economic Affairs Committee, setting out how he wanted them to prioritise implementing the recommendations of a Cabinet Office report on how to get the shale gas industry going.

Of real interest here are the agreed plans between Government and fracking company Cuadrilla if their planning permission for fracking is turned down – which is exactly what Lancashire’s planners have recommended councillors to do.

According to the letter It is agreed that “if permission turned down … Cuadrilla to respond to concerns and appeal asap.” When that has happened, the Government will “Prepare PINS to respond promptly to appeal or SoS recovery if appropriate.”

In layperson’s terms, that means the Government will make sure the Planning Inspectorate fast-tracks the appeal or that Communities Secretary Eric Pickles intervenes. This stands in stark contrast to the line taken by the Prime Minister’s official spokesman that such decisions “should be up to local authorities“.

And how were these ‘asks’ made? Has Cuadrilla been meeting Ministers and officials, or has it been a few quiet words in the right ears? For let’s not forget that Cuadrilla’s chairman Lord Browne works in the Cabinet Office as a Non-Executive Director.

Moving to ‘full exploration’

The letter is also very revealing about longer-term plans for “moving to full exploration”. The Government clearly knows it’s losing the argument at the local level. Two recommendations stand out here:

  • “A cross-Government and industry group should be established … to assess the value and viability of focusing on a small number of sites in less contentious locations.”
  • “Public sector land (particularly MoD owned) should be mapped to potential sites and explored for possible concept testing.”

And the Government seems to accept that the bribes – sorry, benefits – it is offering top local communities to accept fracking aren’t working. The solution: it looks like offer them more. They plan to: “examine the nature of benefits to be offered to local communities where shale developments take place.”

They know they’re not winning the wider battle for hearts and minds either, so the Government is going to carry on doing the industry’s PR job and “build on existing network of neutral academic experts available to provide credible evidence-based views of matters of public concern”, and “develop a national communications plan on shale exploration.”

This isn’t the first evidence of collusion. Lord Browne has already intervened with the then chair of the Environment Agency, Lord Smith, to try to exempt Cuadrilla from compliance with drilling waste regulations.

On another occasion, after a separate personal intervention by Lord Browne, Lord Smith “offered to halve the consultation time for a waste permit”, and “agreed to intervene with a county council over Cuadrilla’s planning permission and to identify further risks to Cuadrilla’s plans.”

Here’s how the government should be acting!

Instead of colluding with the fossil fuel industry to increase production, a Government genuinely committed to action on climate change would treat the oil price crash as an opportunity to protect the climate, help consumers and protect jobs. It would say:

  • We need a ‘just transition’ plan to get jobs and growth and industry out of North Sea Oil, and into North Sea Renewables like off-shore wind. There will be no economic devastation as when the coal mines closed. But we need to move away from oil, not prop it up. We will do all we can to help people and businesses build new, clean industries in the North Sea.
  • We will put in place a plan to keep demand for oil low, to help keep prices low, and ensure undrilled oil stays in the ground. We’ll put in place a proper strategy to make public transport, walking and cycling decent alternatives to motoring. We’ll drive far stronger standards on car and lorry energy efficiency. We’ll invest in a national electric vehicle network. We’ll act at EU and International level to persuade our fellow nations to do the same.
  • We will make sure the oil and gas price falls don’t damage the growing renewables industry. We’ll reassure investors by setting a clear 2030 power decarbonisation target, with policies to ensure we meet it.
  • We will reverse our fossil-fuel strategy to “maximise recovery” and focus instead on ‘minimising demand’ – in every part of the economy.
  • We will treat climate change as an emergency, and make tackling it a priority across all departments of Government.

People want more action from Government on climate change. Not less. Not a botched half-plan, and half-truths about their commitment to action.

The inadequate, partial, feeble responses on climate change are yet another expression of why so many people feel alienated from Westminster governments – they do not act on their promises, or sufficiently in the public interest.

It’s election time soon. Which parties will put people’s interests ahead of propping up fossil fuel companies, and put in place a proper plan to tackle climate change?

In short, who will step up and show they are a party worth voting for?

 

 

More information on the impact of the oil price crash on climate change: Friends of the Earth briefing.

Simon Bullock is Senior Campaigner, Policy and Research Co-ordinator for Friends of the Earth UK.

Tony Bosworth is Energy Campaigner at Friends of the Earth UK.

This article is a synthesis of two articles published on the Friends of the Earth Policy & Politics blog:

 

 




389768

Dash to frack is an insult to democracy Updated for 2026

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There is not one square inch of our beautiful land that is desolate. We are all entitled to love the place we live in, and our love for our home and our community is worth just as much whether we live in the north of our country or the south.

Shame on those who say, don’t spoil my back garden – but do whatever you like in places far away, where people count for less!

Now I have a confession to make. I’ve never spoken before at a public rally. I’ve never even been to a public rally, this is my very first time.

But I’m proud to stand with you today because whether we frack for oil and gas up and down our country really matters. Because those with the power to decide are on the verge of dragging us down the wrong path. Because only your voices, our voices, can stop them.

For six years, I was Britain’s diplomatic envoy for climate change. Believe me, you can’t be in favour of fracking in Britain and in favour of dealing with climate change at the same time. It’s an either / or choice. Those who say it’s not are being ignorant, or deceitful, or deceiving themselves. It’s that simple.

Sometimes in politics you come to a crossroads and you have to choose. If you pretend you don’t, that’s a choice too, and not an honourable one, it’s a covert choice to stick with the status quo. This is such a crossroad.

No community in Britain will ever benefit from fracking. If a few individuals or businesses do well, it will be at the expense of their communities. Fracking at scale is intrusive, disruptive, noisy, and unhealthy. It really does turn communities upside down. Look at what’s happened in the United States.

Gold-plated promises – worth their weight in hot air

We’re told we will have gold-plated regulation to protect our communities from all those harms. It’s a hollow promise. Actually it’s a lie. It’s a lie because our regulators just don’t have the budgets, the skills, or the people to enforce it properly. It relies entirely on self-policing by the companies concerned.

We tried self-policing with the banks over there in the City. What could possibly go wrong with that?

Sometimes the interests of a community have to come second to the national interest. But there is no national interest in fracking.

Germany is showing beyond doubt that you can have clean energy, you can have energy efficiency, and you can give control over energy back to communities all at the same time without wrecking the economy.

By getting ahead of us on clean energy, our main European competitor is actually widening its lead over us. It’s time for Britain to catch up.

Let’s hear it for Repower Balcombe, showing the way, and all the other pioneers of community energy up and down Britain.

Fracking on an industrial scale won’t build us a future worth having, it would take us backwards, it would lock us further into fossil dependency. It would also turn our country into a global climate pariah.

Democracy in free fall

And this isn’t just about our climate and our energy. It’s about our democracy. What’s been happening on fracking is not democracy in action. It’s democracy in free fall.

Take the Infrastructure Bill. This odious, antidemocratic Bill would trample on rights and protections, including the ancient law of trespass, woven carefully over centuries into the fabric of our Constitution.

It would put corporate interests above the public interest. Wherever you live it would make your voice the last one to be listened to in any decision about the land and the community around you.

99% of consultees don’t want trespass watered down? I know, let’s ignore them!

An unrestricted right to dump wastes of all kinds under people’s land and houses? That’s not going to be popular! Let’s try and sneak it in at the last minute when nobody’s looking, and if people still object, I know, let’s ignore them!

People say they don’t want profits for developers fracking companies to come before their health and their environment. I know, lets ignore them! Let’s make it a legal requirement to maximize the economic recovery of oil and gas!

When I joined the Civil Service 35 years ago, ministers and officials would have resigned rather than connive at such abuses of our democratic system

In Britain today we have the forms but not the substance of democracy, and what’s happening on fracking is a symptom of that sickness. So a victory in the struggle to stop fracking will also be a victory, a crucial victory in the longer struggle to renew our democracy in Britain.

Suddenly, the tectonic plates are shifting

Most of the time in politics things are stuck. The tectonic plates don’t move very much. You may gain a few inches here and there but progress is incremental. But every now and again the plates start to slip and anything is possible. This is such a moment. It may be the only such moment we get.

The plates are slipping on fracking. Suddenly it is dawning on our representatives that the political cost of forcing it through is going to be higher than they thought.

More and more of them are taking the trouble to listen to their constituents, and to get their heads round what’s involved. They are working out for themselves what a bad idea this really is.

That’s what the members of the Environmental Audit Committee have done with their ‘Environmental risks of fracking‘ report and their call for a fracking moratorium. They have shown real courage, defying their Party machines. Let’s now show them the thanks they deserve!

But too many MPs still think it’s more important to do the bidding of those Party machines and of their corporate friends than it is to listen to the people who put them in our Parliament.

The friends of fracking, in the Coalition parties and the Labour Party, including Tom Greatrex on Twitter, are trying a bit harder to look as if they are listening. But what they are really trying to do is lock the tectonic plates back in place before they slip too far, before they make it impossible for the drilling to start.

We must keep up our fight for a fracking maratorium

So now, just as we finally see some progress, now we must push even harder. And here’s what we should push for.

Let’s stop the headlong rush, with a full moratorium now, as demanded by the Environmental Audit Committee, followed by a proper national debate. No ifs not buts, and no more opportunistic spin from those who aspire to run our energy policy after May.

While we close the front door let’s stop the Bill from forcing open the back door, with its anti-democratic provisions on trespass and householder permission and so-called economic recovery.

And let’s take off the table right now, once and for all, any possibility of self-policing by companies whose main interest is in minimizing red tape not protecting the well being of communities.

David Cameron, Nick Clegg, Ed Miliband, Jenny Mein and the County Council you lead in Preston: please listen: moratorium now, stop the Bill, no more self-policing. Otherwise you will be betraying the people who put you where you are, and they will not easily forgive you.

Friends, over there, in Victoria Tower Gardens, is a statue of Emmeline Pankhurst. Every struggle that has made our country better has been a struggle to make Britain a country for all the people not just a privileged few.

We are struggling to give the people a voice on energy. Mrs Pankhurst struggled to give women a voice in politics. We are following in her footsteps. We can be so proud of that.

So far, those who want to frack our country into an even deeper political stupor have been able to make progress by bullying and stealth. But now at last, thanks to your courage and determination, our opponents have been forced into the open and there is a real democratic choice to be made.

Our representatives will only make the right choice if they can hear our voice. Are we today going to make our voice heard, not just here on the street but inside the thick walls of that Palace over there?

Let’s make the biggest noise, every one of us, let’s make the biggest noise we’ve ever made in our lives.

 

 

John Ashton is one of the world’s leading climate diplomats, an independent commentator and adviser on the politics of climate change, and a founder of 3EG. From 2006-12 he served as Special Representative for Climate Change to three successive UK Foreign Secretaries, spanning the current Coalition and the previous Labour Government.

This text is an edited version of a speech given by John Ashton, the UK’s Special Representative for Climate Change between 2006-2012, made on 26 January at a public rally outiside Parliament, Westminster, London. It is based on an edited transcript originally published by Responding to Climate Change.

 

 




389674

Message to the UK: the fracking ‘bridge’ is burning! Updated for 2026

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On a week-long trip to the UK last fall, I was struck by how quickly the push to open up the country to fracking has been escalating.

Thankfully, activists are mounting a vigorous and creative response, and are more than up to the task of galvanizing the public to put a stop to this mad dash to extract.

A notable victory was scored yesterday when MPs forced amendments through the UK government’s Infrastructure Bill to keep fracking out of national parks, areas of outstanding natural beauty, and places where major aquifers would be placed at risk of pollution.

But still MPs failed to impose the fracking moratorium demanded by the Environmental Audit Committee, and the fracking industry will still enjoy carte blanche to exploit shale gas across most of the country. The fight ahead will not be an easy one.

In rushing to exploit the UK’s shale gas reserves, the industry has spent millions on public relations and brazenly overridden the democratic will of British citizens by overturning laws that had prevented drilling under homes. The coalition government, meanwhile, has done the sector’s bidding at every turn.

We’ve seen all of this before. Indeed what is happening in the UK is modeled so closely on the US experience that an October 2014 opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal spoke of “plotting an American-style fracking revolution in Britain“.

The frackers’ plan for the UK is rolling out …

So it’s worth playing close attention to how that earlier plot played out, both in the United States and in my own country, Canada. The US is not only where the gas companies honed various technologies used in fracking, but also where they honed their branding-like their pitch, originating in the early 1980s, that natural gas was a ‘bridge’ to a clean energy future.

As opposition has grown, they have cleverly funded studies stamped by big green organizations that understate fracking’s huge greenhouse gas impact; touted over-optimistic production forecasts; and in true shock doctrine style, tried to take advantage of geo-political crisis – like the gas cut-offs in Ukraine – to push through massive export plans that in any other circumstance could never gain legislative or public approval.

And when all else fails, government and industry have turned to criminalizing peaceful activism. They’ve dispatched heavily armed police against Indigenous communities blockading shale gas exploration in New Brunswick, Canada; gagged families impacted by drilling from criticizing the industry for an entire lifetime; and tried to charge as “terrorists” protesters in Oklahoma who unfurled a banner and dropped glitter at an oil and gas company’s office.

Yet even with such tactics, communities across North America are in full revolt. Last month came the huge news that New York State would ban fracking, following a steady stream of bans and moratoria passed in local communities, as well as years of sustained pressure from the activists and scientists – like biologist and author Sandra Steingraber, co-founder of New Yorkers Against Fracking – who have tirelessly documented and spread the word about the health and climate impacts.

The New York uprising continues in the Finger Lakes region of the state, where one Texas-based company hopes to create a massive “gas storage and transportation hub” – and where 200 blockaders have been arrested resisting its plans to fill abandoned salt caverns along Seneca Lake with enormous amounts of fracked gas.

A ban has also been passed in Vermont and there are moratoria in parts of California, as well as in the Canadian provinces of Quebec, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland.

And a month before the New York victory, the Texas town of Denton – the birthplace of the fracking boom and perhaps the most drilled area in the country-voted decisively to ban hydraulic fracturing.

The victory was achieved in a Republican town, in the face of an industry that poured hundreds of thousands into the battle – which was, in the words of a resident, “more like David and Godzilla than David and Goliath.”

Beware – the fracking industry knows no bounds of decency

The story of Denton has much to teach the growing anti-fracking movement in Britain. What it demonstrates is that, left to their own devices, the fossil fuel companies will come after your homes, your churches, your schools, your parks, your university campuses, and your sports stadiums – all of which have had wells drilled on or near them in Denton.

But despite all of the David Cameron government’s fanfare about “going all out for shale“, widespread resistance has already put the UK’s pro-fracking forces on the defensive.

A recent Guardian analysis found that only 11 new exploration wells are planned for 2015, with the industry bemoaning the “glacially slow” pace of the shale expansion-to say nothing of possible impacts from the global oil price shock now threatening extreme fossil fuels around the world.

Just last week, ahead of yesterday’s key Parliament vote on fracking legislation, green groups sent Cameron a petition with 267,000 signatures rejecting the dash for gas – something that undoubtedly helped to win key concessions.

Climate change minister Amber Rudd also came under pressure in yesterday’s debate, and was forced to concede that the government would cancel fracking licences if the Committee on Climate Change decided that exploiting shale gas would imperil the UK’s climate change goals, or explain its failure to do so.

It may seem that frackers in the UK and elsewhere will stop at nothing to have their way. But thanks to the rising global climate movement, the so-called ‘bridge’ is already burning. And it’s long past time to choose a different path.

 

 

Naomi Klein is a Canadian author and social activist known for her political analyses and criticism of corporate globalization and of corporate capitalism, and her recent book on climate change, ‘This Changes Everything‘.

This article was originally published on This Changes Everything, and has been updated by The Ecologist.

Photograph by Frack Free Denton.

 

 




389509

The EAC’s plan for a ‘fracking moratorium’ in Britain doesn’t go far enough Updated for 2026

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Today will be an interesting day for the future of the campaign against unconventional oil and gas in Britain. It could be the day wen we turn a corner – or, quite possibly, not, if the fossil fuel lobby within the government get their way.

Last week, Caroline Spelman let slip that the Environment Audit Committee’s (EAC) new report, the ‘Environmental risks of fracking’, would call for a moratorium.

Since then both the pro and anti side of the debate has been buzzing in anticipation of the report’s content, and whether today’s vote on the Infrastructure Bill would call a halt to fracking in Britain.

The day before that, news emerged that planners at Lancashire County Council were recommending refusal of planning permission for Cuadrilla’s two new shale exploration sites – on the grounds of noise and traffic generation.

Shortly thereafter the North West Energy Task Force, a local ‘astroturf‘ lobby group funded by Centrica and Cuadrilla (their information allegedly ghost-written by Centrica and Cuadrilla’s lobbyists, Westbourne Communications), were quoted as saying that traffic and noise were “not grounds for objections“.

In Scotland there’s an ongoing debate about a ban, fuelled by Dart Energy’s proposed coalbed methane (CBM) developments around Airth, as well as Cluff Natural Resources plans for underground coal gasification (UCG) at Kincardine in the Firth of Forth. It’s even causing spats within the SNP.

Both CBM and UCG have, like shale gas, the potential to cause pollution. Question is, would either of these be caught within the EAC’s proposals for a moratorium on ‘fracking’?

Good effort … but please try harder

The problem with the media-simplified debate over ‘extreme energy’ in Britain is that has focussed, to its detriment, upon shale gas and ‘fracking’.

While shale gas inevitably involves hydraulic fracturing, coalbed methane does not always require it; and underground coal gasification is a wholly different, and arguably worse, process altogether.

I wrote a lengthy submission to the EAC’s inquiry, outlining these differences. In a follow-up article for The Ecologist, I challenged them to ‘prove me wrong’ that they could hold an evidence-based, unbiased exploration of the issues.

While the EAC’s new report certainly excels above previous reports by the Energy and Climate or Economic Affairs committees, it still contains some serious errors and omissions. Top of my list of bullet points for consideration by the EAC’s inquiry (paragraph 46 of my submission):

“Decision-making must differentiate shale gas, from coalbed methane, from UCG, in order to recognise their unique ‘fingerprint’ upon the environment.”

They did not do that. Consequently amendments proposed for the Infrastructure Bill contain a significant flaw. Throughout the amendments to the bill the terms ‘shale gas’ and ‘hydraulic fracturing’ are used. The amendment tabled by the EAC states:

“leave out ‘the objective of maximising the economic recovery of UK petroleum, in particular through’ and insert ‘not the objective of maximising the economic recovery of UK petroleum but ensuring that fossil fuel emissions are limited to the carbon budgets advised by the Committee on Climate Change and introducing a moratorium on the hydraulic fracturing of shale gas deposits in order to reduce the risk of carbon budgets being breached’.”

If enacted, the terms of such a ‘moratorium’ would arguably not apply to coalbed methane – it could be developed (though less economically) without the use of high volume hydraulic fracturing. Coastal Oil and Gas in South Wales, or Dart (recently taken over by IGas) at Airth, or Shropshire and Cheshire, could still go ahead with their extraction plans.

And such a ban would arguably not affect, in any way, the proposed development of UCG by companies such as Cluff Natural Resources or Five Quarter Energy.

A failure to test the evidence

The purpose of the Environmental Audit Committee is to consider how government policy contribute to environmental protection and sustainable development, and to audit their performance. In my view the Committee haven’t done that.

They did not seek to quantify the full range of impacts of the various ‘unconventional’ oil and gas technologies currently planned for development across Britain. And it has to be said, the Committee have made some good recommendations in their – admittedly rushed – report. However, they also appeared to accept evidence which was highly questionable.

For example (paragraph 78 of their report) states: “Many of our witnesses acknowledged that the existing UK conventional onshore industry has a generally safe history, with over 200 producing wells and no pollution incidents from well design.”

In fact recent research, by a part-industry-sponsored group, shows that we have no detailed knowledge of at least half of the 2,000 or so deep wells drilled in Britain over the last century; there is no structured monitoring process to check their condition; and at least one well has failed – and none of those where subject to high volume hydraulic fracturing (HVHF).

The one well in Britain which has been subject to HVHF, at Preese Hall, has failed – and the Health and Safety Executive’s refusal to require the proper inspection of the well during construction is in part responsible for that failure.

The Committee also state (paragraph 36 of their report): “The Researching Fracking In Europe consortium informed us that their ‘research has found that even in the ‘worst case scenario’, flux in the radioactivity of flowback fluid would not exceed the annual exposure limit set by the UK Environment Agency.'”

I tackled that paper, and its flaws, in an article for The Ecologist last July.

It used a highly selective sample of some of the most radioactive natural mineral springs in order to state that the ‘naturally occurring’ radioactivity in flowback water is safe. It also makes some error in its assumptions about dose limits, and fails to show all the data required to validate it findings against the international standard procedures for dose calculation.

That is why we need a proper public inquiry, testing the evidence. All assumptions and data, whatever its source, must be objectively tested to establish how much weight can be applied to them.

Carbon is not the only critical issue

Perhaps my greatest difficulty with the EAC’s report is that it largely concentrates on climate change and carbon emissions. That completely misses the broad range of impacts unconventional fossil fuels create.

We could completely eradicate the fugitive emissions from unconventional oil and gas, making it some of the cleanest fossil fuel production in the world, and the problems it creates would still make it highly damaging.

‘Low carbon’ or ‘green completion‘ unconventional oil and gas production would still generate large quantities of toxic and hazardous materials – with as yet no identified treatment facility or disposal location.

These developments, in particular the pipelines and associated roads, would also damage large areas of the landscape and natural habitats – as outlined in recent US research.

And though it may create a short-term boom for certain vested interests – like the North West Energy Task Force – it would absolutely fail to tackle the greater imperative of addressing the ecological overshoot of our society.

What the media ignored this week

There were two other events in the last week which passed by, seemingly un-noticed.

Firstly, Egdon Resources applied for a permit from the Environment Agency to test drill their Laughton site. No fracking – yet – but it enlarges a new eastern development area in the Bowland shale.

More significantly, Third Energy applied to use two existing, uneconomic wells for the disposal of the waste from other oil and gas operations – one permit for their site at Ebberston (on the border of the North Yorks. Moors National Park) and another permit for their site near Pickering (just south of the national park area).

This represents a significant policy shift as, until now, Britain hasn’t favoured disposal via deep injection. In the US, it is deep injection which appears to give rise to the greatest risks from groundwater pollution and seismic activity.

Third Energy’s current gas wells are ‘conventional’ (free flowing) gas wells. What’s significant here is not the source of the wastewater – it’s that this application could set a precedent for deep disposal from unconventional oil and gas sites.

Again, that’s something the EAC’s moratorium doesn’t encompass.

This is significant because of what follows from it

What happens in Parliament today is significant, but it’s not as important as what comes next. If there’s a moratorium, then we have to make sure that any inquiry processes which follow properly consider all the available evidence.

Alternately, if the Government force a vote to quash the call for a moratorium, that escalates the nature of the debate. It will no longer be a reasoned debate over evidence. The Government will have abandoned any such pretence, and will instead impose their will purely because they can.

If the Government force their will upon Parliament, that’s as big a problem for the Environmental Audit Committee as it is for the public. It basically says that their evidence gathering was a waste of time, and that they are not going to be listened to.

For the public, and anti-fracking campaigners in particular, it’s a clear message. That democratic processes based upon evidence are no longer valid – and that in Britain, as in the USA, it is spin and lobbying which now provide the justification for policy.

If you wish to oppose the development of unconventional oil and gas, with all legal redress closed off by current law reforms, your only option for doing so will be through direct action.

 

 

Paul Mobbs is an independent environmental consultant, investigator, author and lecturer, and maintains the Free Range Activism Website (FRAW).

A fully referenced version of this article is located on FRAW.

Also on The Ecologist: ‘Fracking policy and the pollution of British democracy‘, ‘Parliament’s fracking examination must be inclusive and impartial‘ and other articles by Paul Mobbs.

 

 




389417

Message to the UK: the fracking ‘bridge’ is burning! Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




On a week-long trip to the UK last fall, I was struck by how quickly the push to open up the country to fracking has been escalating.

Thankfully, activists are mounting a vigorous and creative response, and are more than up to the task of galvanizing the public to put a stop to this mad dash to extract.

A notable victory was scored yesterday when MPs forced amendments through the UK government’s Infrastructure Bill to keep fracking out of national parks, areas of outstanding natural beauty, and places where major aquifers would be placed at risk of pollution.

But still MPs failed to impose the fracking moratorium demanded by the Environmental Audit Committee, and the fracking industry will still enjoy carte blanche to exploit shale gas across most of the country. The fight ahead will not be an easy one.

In rushing to exploit the UK’s shale gas reserves, the industry has spent millions on public relations and brazenly overridden the democratic will of British citizens by overturning laws that had prevented drilling under homes. The coalition government, meanwhile, has done the sector’s bidding at every turn.

We’ve seen all of this before. Indeed what is happening in the UK is modeled so closely on the US experience that an October 2014 opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal spoke of “plotting an American-style fracking revolution in Britain“.

The frackers’ plan for the UK is rolling out …

So it’s worth playing close attention to how that earlier plot played out, both in the United States and in my own country, Canada. The US is not only where the gas companies honed various technologies used in fracking, but also where they honed their branding-like their pitch, originating in the early 1980s, that natural gas was a ‘bridge’ to a clean energy future.

As opposition has grown, they have cleverly funded studies stamped by big green organizations that understate fracking’s huge greenhouse gas impact; touted over-optimistic production forecasts; and in true shock doctrine style, tried to take advantage of geo-political crisis – like the gas cut-offs in Ukraine – to push through massive export plans that in any other circumstance could never gain legislative or public approval.

And when all else fails, government and industry have turned to criminalizing peaceful activism. They’ve dispatched heavily armed police against Indigenous communities blockading shale gas exploration in New Brunswick, Canada; gagged families impacted by drilling from criticizing the industry for an entire lifetime; and tried to charge as “terrorists” protesters in Oklahoma who unfurled a banner and dropped glitter at an oil and gas company’s office.

Yet even with such tactics, communities across North America are in full revolt. Last month came the huge news that New York State would ban fracking, following a steady stream of bans and moratoria passed in local communities, as well as years of sustained pressure from the activists and scientists – like biologist and author Sandra Steingraber, co-founder of New Yorkers Against Fracking – who have tirelessly documented and spread the word about the health and climate impacts.

The New York uprising continues in the Finger Lakes region of the state, where one Texas-based company hopes to create a massive “gas storage and transportation hub” – and where 200 blockaders have been arrested resisting its plans to fill abandoned salt caverns along Seneca Lake with enormous amounts of fracked gas.

A ban has also been passed in Vermont and there are moratoria in parts of California, as well as in the Canadian provinces of Quebec, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland.

And a month before the New York victory, the Texas town of Denton – the birthplace of the fracking boom and perhaps the most drilled area in the country-voted decisively to ban hydraulic fracturing.

The victory was achieved in a Republican town, in the face of an industry that poured hundreds of thousands into the battle – which was, in the words of a resident, “more like David and Godzilla than David and Goliath.”

Beware – the fracking industry knows no bounds of decency

The story of Denton has much to teach the growing anti-fracking movement in Britain. What it demonstrates is that, left to their own devices, the fossil fuel companies will come after your homes, your churches, your schools, your parks, your university campuses, and your sports stadiums – all of which have had wells drilled on or near them in Denton.

But despite all of the David Cameron government’s fanfare about “going all out for shale“, widespread resistance has already put the UK’s pro-fracking forces on the defensive.

A recent Guardian analysis found that only 11 new exploration wells are planned for 2015, with the industry bemoaning the “glacially slow” pace of the shale expansion-to say nothing of possible impacts from the global oil price shock now threatening extreme fossil fuels around the world.

Just last week, ahead of yesterday’s key Parliament vote on fracking legislation, green groups sent Cameron a petition with 267,000 signatures rejecting the dash for gas – something that undoubtedly helped to win key concessions.

Climate change minister Amber Rudd also came under pressure in yesterday’s debate, and was forced to concede that the government would cancel fracking licences if the Committee on Climate Change decided that exploiting shale gas would imperil the UK’s climate change goals, or explain its failure to do so.

It may seem that frackers in the UK and elsewhere will stop at nothing to have their way. But thanks to the rising global climate movement, the so-called ‘bridge’ is already burning. And it’s long past time to choose a different path.

 

 

Naomi Klein is a Canadian author and social activist known for her political analyses and criticism of corporate globalization and of corporate capitalism, and her recent book on climate change, ‘This Changes Everything‘.

This article was originally published on This Changes Everything, and has been updated by The Ecologist.

Photograph by Frack Free Denton.

 

 




389509

The EAC’s plan for a ‘fracking moratorium’ in Britain doesn’t go far enough Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




Today will be an interesting day for the future of the campaign against unconventional oil and gas in Britain. It could be the day wen we turn a corner – or, quite possibly, not, if the fossil fuel lobby within the government get their way.

Last week, Caroline Spelman let slip that the Environment Audit Committee’s (EAC) new report, the ‘Environmental risks of fracking’, would call for a moratorium.

Since then both the pro and anti side of the debate has been buzzing in anticipation of the report’s content, and whether today’s vote on the Infrastructure Bill would call a halt to fracking in Britain.

The day before that, news emerged that planners at Lancashire County Council were recommending refusal of planning permission for Cuadrilla’s two new shale exploration sites – on the grounds of noise and traffic generation.

Shortly thereafter the North West Energy Task Force, a local ‘astroturf‘ lobby group funded by Centrica and Cuadrilla (their information allegedly ghost-written by Centrica and Cuadrilla’s lobbyists, Westbourne Communications), were quoted as saying that traffic and noise were “not grounds for objections“.

In Scotland there’s an ongoing debate about a ban, fuelled by Dart Energy’s proposed coalbed methane (CBM) developments around Airth, as well as Cluff Natural Resources plans for underground coal gasification (UCG) at Kincardine in the Firth of Forth. It’s even causing spats within the SNP.

Both CBM and UCG have, like shale gas, the potential to cause pollution. Question is, would either of these be caught within the EAC’s proposals for a moratorium on ‘fracking’?

Good effort … but please try harder

The problem with the media-simplified debate over ‘extreme energy’ in Britain is that has focussed, to its detriment, upon shale gas and ‘fracking’.

While shale gas inevitably involves hydraulic fracturing, coalbed methane does not always require it; and underground coal gasification is a wholly different, and arguably worse, process altogether.

I wrote a lengthy submission to the EAC’s inquiry, outlining these differences. In a follow-up article for The Ecologist, I challenged them to ‘prove me wrong’ that they could hold an evidence-based, unbiased exploration of the issues.

While the EAC’s new report certainly excels above previous reports by the Energy and Climate or Economic Affairs committees, it still contains some serious errors and omissions. Top of my list of bullet points for consideration by the EAC’s inquiry (paragraph 46 of my submission):

“Decision-making must differentiate shale gas, from coalbed methane, from UCG, in order to recognise their unique ‘fingerprint’ upon the environment.”

They did not do that. Consequently amendments proposed for the Infrastructure Bill contain a significant flaw. Throughout the amendments to the bill the terms ‘shale gas’ and ‘hydraulic fracturing’ are used. The amendment tabled by the EAC states:

“leave out ‘the objective of maximising the economic recovery of UK petroleum, in particular through’ and insert ‘not the objective of maximising the economic recovery of UK petroleum but ensuring that fossil fuel emissions are limited to the carbon budgets advised by the Committee on Climate Change and introducing a moratorium on the hydraulic fracturing of shale gas deposits in order to reduce the risk of carbon budgets being breached’.”

If enacted, the terms of such a ‘moratorium’ would arguably not apply to coalbed methane – it could be developed (though less economically) without the use of high volume hydraulic fracturing. Coastal Oil and Gas in South Wales, or Dart (recently taken over by IGas) at Airth, or Shropshire and Cheshire, could still go ahead with their extraction plans.

And such a ban would arguably not affect, in any way, the proposed development of UCG by companies such as Cluff Natural Resources or Five Quarter Energy.

A failure to test the evidence

The purpose of the Environmental Audit Committee is to consider how government policy contribute to environmental protection and sustainable development, and to audit their performance. In my view the Committee haven’t done that.

They did not seek to quantify the full range of impacts of the various ‘unconventional’ oil and gas technologies currently planned for development across Britain. And it has to be said, the Committee have made some good recommendations in their – admittedly rushed – report. However, they also appeared to accept evidence which was highly questionable.

For example (paragraph 78 of their report) states: “Many of our witnesses acknowledged that the existing UK conventional onshore industry has a generally safe history, with over 200 producing wells and no pollution incidents from well design.”

In fact recent research, by a part-industry-sponsored group, shows that we have no detailed knowledge of at least half of the 2,000 or so deep wells drilled in Britain over the last century; there is no structured monitoring process to check their condition; and at least one well has failed – and none of those where subject to high volume hydraulic fracturing (HVHF).

The one well in Britain which has been subject to HVHF, at Preese Hall, has failed – and the Health and Safety Executive’s refusal to require the proper inspection of the well during construction is in part responsible for that failure.

The Committee also state (paragraph 36 of their report): “The Researching Fracking In Europe consortium informed us that their ‘research has found that even in the ‘worst case scenario’, flux in the radioactivity of flowback fluid would not exceed the annual exposure limit set by the UK Environment Agency.'”

I tackled that paper, and its flaws, in an article for The Ecologist last July.

It used a highly selective sample of some of the most radioactive natural mineral springs in order to state that the ‘naturally occurring’ radioactivity in flowback water is safe. It also makes some error in its assumptions about dose limits, and fails to show all the data required to validate it findings against the international standard procedures for dose calculation.

That is why we need a proper public inquiry, testing the evidence. All assumptions and data, whatever its source, must be objectively tested to establish how much weight can be applied to them.

Carbon is not the only critical issue

Perhaps my greatest difficulty with the EAC’s report is that it largely concentrates on climate change and carbon emissions. That completely misses the broad range of impacts unconventional fossil fuels create.

We could completely eradicate the fugitive emissions from unconventional oil and gas, making it some of the cleanest fossil fuel production in the world, and the problems it creates would still make it highly damaging.

‘Low carbon’ or ‘green completion‘ unconventional oil and gas production would still generate large quantities of toxic and hazardous materials – with as yet no identified treatment facility or disposal location.

These developments, in particular the pipelines and associated roads, would also damage large areas of the landscape and natural habitats – as outlined in recent US research.

And though it may create a short-term boom for certain vested interests – like the North West Energy Task Force – it would absolutely fail to tackle the greater imperative of addressing the ecological overshoot of our society.

What the media ignored this week

There were two other events in the last week which passed by, seemingly un-noticed.

Firstly, Egdon Resources applied for a permit from the Environment Agency to test drill their Laughton site. No fracking – yet – but it enlarges a new eastern development area in the Bowland shale.

More significantly, Third Energy applied to use two existing, uneconomic wells for the disposal of the waste from other oil and gas operations – one permit for their site at Ebberston (on the border of the North Yorks. Moors National Park) and another permit for their site near Pickering (just south of the national park area).

This represents a significant policy shift as, until now, Britain hasn’t favoured disposal via deep injection. In the US, it is deep injection which appears to give rise to the greatest risks from groundwater pollution and seismic activity.

Third Energy’s current gas wells are ‘conventional’ (free flowing) gas wells. What’s significant here is not the source of the wastewater – it’s that this application could set a precedent for deep disposal from unconventional oil and gas sites.

Again, that’s something the EAC’s moratorium doesn’t encompass.

This is significant because of what follows from it

What happens in Parliament today is significant, but it’s not as important as what comes next. If there’s a moratorium, then we have to make sure that any inquiry processes which follow properly consider all the available evidence.

Alternately, if the Government force a vote to quash the call for a moratorium, that escalates the nature of the debate. It will no longer be a reasoned debate over evidence. The Government will have abandoned any such pretence, and will instead impose their will purely because they can.

If the Government force their will upon Parliament, that’s as big a problem for the Environmental Audit Committee as it is for the public. It basically says that their evidence gathering was a waste of time, and that they are not going to be listened to.

For the public, and anti-fracking campaigners in particular, it’s a clear message. That democratic processes based upon evidence are no longer valid – and that in Britain, as in the USA, it is spin and lobbying which now provide the justification for policy.

If you wish to oppose the development of unconventional oil and gas, with all legal redress closed off by current law reforms, your only option for doing so will be through direct action.

 

 

Paul Mobbs is an independent environmental consultant, investigator, author and lecturer, and maintains the Free Range Activism Website (FRAW).

A fully referenced version of this article is located on FRAW.

Also on The Ecologist: ‘Fracking policy and the pollution of British democracy‘, ‘Parliament’s fracking examination must be inclusive and impartial‘ and other articles by Paul Mobbs.

 

 




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The EAC’s plan for a ‘fracking moratorium’ in Britain doesn’t go far enough Updated for 2026

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Today will be an interesting day for the future of the campaign against unconventional oil and gas in Britain. It could be the day wen we turn a corner – or, quite possibly, not, if the fossil fuel lobby within the government get their way.

Last week, Caroline Spelman let slip that the Environment Audit Committee’s (EAC) new report, the ‘Environmental risks of fracking’, would call for a moratorium.

Since then both the pro and anti side of the debate has been buzzing in anticipation of the report’s content, and whether today’s vote on the Infrastructure Bill would call a halt to fracking in Britain.

The day before that, news emerged that planners at Lancashire County Council were recommending refusal of planning permission for Cuadrilla’s two new shale exploration sites – on the grounds of noise and traffic generation.

Shortly thereafter the North West Energy Task Force, a local ‘astroturf‘ lobby group funded by Centrica and Cuadrilla (their information allegedly ghost-written by Centrica and Cuadrilla’s lobbyists, Westbourne Communications), were quoted as saying that traffic and noise were “not grounds for objections“.

In Scotland there’s an ongoing debate about a ban, fuelled by Dart Energy’s proposed coalbed methane (CBM) developments around Airth, as well as Cluff Natural Resources plans for underground coal gasification (UCG) at Kincardine in the Firth of Forth. It’s even causing spats within the SNP.

Both CBM and UCG have, like shale gas, the potential to cause pollution. Question is, would either of these be caught within the EAC’s proposals for a moratorium on ‘fracking’?

Good effort … but please try harder

The problem with the media-simplified debate over ‘extreme energy’ in Britain is that has focussed, to its detriment, upon shale gas and ‘fracking’.

While shale gas inevitably involves hydraulic fracturing, coalbed methane does not always require it; and underground coal gasification is a wholly different, and arguably worse, process altogether.

I wrote a lengthy submission to the EAC’s inquiry, outlining these differences. In a follow-up article for The Ecologist, I challenged them to ‘prove me wrong’ that they could hold an evidence-based, unbiased exploration of the issues.

While the EAC’s new report certainly excels above previous reports by the Energy and Climate or Economic Affairs committees, it still contains some serious errors and omissions. Top of my list of bullet points for consideration by the EAC’s inquiry (paragraph 46 of my submission):

“Decision-making must differentiate shale gas, from coalbed methane, from UCG, in order to recognise their unique ‘fingerprint’ upon the environment.”

They did not do that. Consequently amendments proposed for the Infrastructure Bill contain a significant flaw. Throughout the amendments to the bill the terms ‘shale gas’ and ‘hydraulic fracturing’ are used. The amendment tabled by the EAC states:

“leave out ‘the objective of maximising the economic recovery of UK petroleum, in particular through’ and insert ‘not the objective of maximising the economic recovery of UK petroleum but ensuring that fossil fuel emissions are limited to the carbon budgets advised by the Committee on Climate Change and introducing a moratorium on the hydraulic fracturing of shale gas deposits in order to reduce the risk of carbon budgets being breached’.”

If enacted, the terms of such a ‘moratorium’ would arguably not apply to coalbed methane – it could be developed (though less economically) without the use of high volume hydraulic fracturing. Coastal Oil and Gas in South Wales, or Dart (recently taken over by IGas) at Airth, or Shropshire and Cheshire, could still go ahead with their extraction plans.

And such a ban would arguably not affect, in any way, the proposed development of UCG by companies such as Cluff Natural Resources or Five Quarter Energy.

A failure to test the evidence

The purpose of the Environmental Audit Committee is to consider how government policy contribute to environmental protection and sustainable development, and to audit their performance. In my view the Committee haven’t done that.

They did not seek to quantify the full range of impacts of the various ‘unconventional’ oil and gas technologies currently planned for development across Britain. And it has to be said, the Committee have made some good recommendations in their – admittedly rushed – report. However, they also appeared to accept evidence which was highly questionable.

For example (paragraph 78 of their report) states: “Many of our witnesses acknowledged that the existing UK conventional onshore industry has a generally safe history, with over 200 producing wells and no pollution incidents from well design.”

In fact recent research, by a part-industry-sponsored group, shows that we have no detailed knowledge of at least half of the 2,000 or so deep wells drilled in Britain over the last century; there is no structured monitoring process to check their condition; and at least one well has failed – and none of those where subject to high volume hydraulic fracturing (HVHF).

The one well in Britain which has been subject to HVHF, at Preese Hall, has failed – and the Health and Safety Executive’s refusal to require the proper inspection of the well during construction is in part responsible for that failure.

The Committee also state (paragraph 36 of their report): “The Researching Fracking In Europe consortium informed us that their ‘research has found that even in the ‘worst case scenario’, flux in the radioactivity of flowback fluid would not exceed the annual exposure limit set by the UK Environment Agency.'”

I tackled that paper, and its flaws, in an article for The Ecologist last July.

It used a highly selective sample of some of the most radioactive natural mineral springs in order to state that the ‘naturally occurring’ radioactivity in flowback water is safe. It also makes some error in its assumptions about dose limits, and fails to show all the data required to validate it findings against the international standard procedures for dose calculation.

That is why we need a proper public inquiry, testing the evidence. All assumptions and data, whatever its source, must be objectively tested to establish how much weight can be applied to them.

Carbon is not the only critical issue

Perhaps my greatest difficulty with the EAC’s report is that it largely concentrates on climate change and carbon emissions. That completely misses the broad range of impacts unconventional fossil fuels create.

We could completely eradicate the fugitive emissions from unconventional oil and gas, making it some of the cleanest fossil fuel production in the world, and the problems it creates would still make it highly damaging.

‘Low carbon’ or ‘green completion‘ unconventional oil and gas production would still generate large quantities of toxic and hazardous materials – with as yet no identified treatment facility or disposal location.

These developments, in particular the pipelines and associated roads, would also damage large areas of the landscape and natural habitats – as outlined in recent US research.

And though it may create a short-term boom for certain vested interests – like the North West Energy Task Force – it would absolutely fail to tackle the greater imperative of addressing the ecological overshoot of our society.

What the media ignored this week

There were two other events in the last week which passed by, seemingly un-noticed.

Firstly, Egdon Resources applied for a permit from the Environment Agency to test drill their Laughton site. No fracking – yet – but it enlarges a new eastern development area in the Bowland shale.

More significantly, Third Energy applied to use two existing, uneconomic wells for the disposal of the waste from other oil and gas operations – one permit for their site at Ebberston (on the border of the North Yorks. Moors National Park) and another permit for their site near Pickering (just south of the national park area).

This represents a significant policy shift as, until now, Britain hasn’t favoured disposal via deep injection. In the US, it is deep injection which appears to give rise to the greatest risks from groundwater pollution and seismic activity.

Third Energy’s current gas wells are ‘conventional’ (free flowing) gas wells. What’s significant here is not the source of the wastewater – it’s that this application could set a precedent for deep disposal from unconventional oil and gas sites.

Again, that’s something the EAC’s moratorium doesn’t encompass.

This is significant because of what follows from it

What happens in Parliament today is significant, but it’s not as important as what comes next. If there’s a moratorium, then we have to make sure that any inquiry processes which follow properly consider all the available evidence.

Alternately, if the Government force a vote to quash the call for a moratorium, that escalates the nature of the debate. It will no longer be a reasoned debate over evidence. The Government will have abandoned any such pretence, and will instead impose their will purely because they can.

If the Government force their will upon Parliament, that’s as big a problem for the Environmental Audit Committee as it is for the public. It basically says that their evidence gathering was a waste of time, and that they are not going to be listened to.

For the public, and anti-fracking campaigners in particular, it’s a clear message. That democratic processes based upon evidence are no longer valid – and that in Britain, as in the USA, it is spin and lobbying which now provide the justification for policy.

If you wish to oppose the development of unconventional oil and gas, with all legal redress closed off by current law reforms, your only option for doing so will be through direct action.

 

 

Paul Mobbs is an independent environmental consultant, investigator, author and lecturer, and maintains the Free Range Activism Website (FRAW).

A fully referenced version of this article is located on FRAW.

Also on The Ecologist: ‘Fracking policy and the pollution of British democracy‘, ‘Parliament’s fracking examination must be inclusive and impartial‘ and other articles by Paul Mobbs.

 

 




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