UK Makes Case For Sustained Investment In Fossil Fuels

The United Kingdom(UK) Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak has said, UK will need fossil fuels for the “next few decades” thus calling for sustained investment in the sector for that period.

This is also as the UK moves to eliminate net greenhouse gas emissions, after being urged to oppose Equinor ASA’s Rosebank oil field project in the North Sea.

“It makes absolutely no sense to not invest in the resources we have here at home, to import foreign fossil fuels, not create jobs here and import them at twice the carbon emissions as our local resources. “It is an economically illiterate policy,” Sunak told lawmakers in weekly questions in the House of Commons on Wednesday.

Sunak was responding to a question from Green Party Member of Parliament Caroline Lucas who said giving Rosebank the green light would ‘blow climate targets.’

The International Energy Agency has said, there can be no new oil and gas production if the world is to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Regulators are yet to give final consent for Rosebank, which Equinor would develop under an existing license. Equinor is seeking to make a final investment decision on the project, located west of Scotland’s Shetland Islands, before the end of June.