Conservative party leader Kemi Badenoch stated recently that the party would eliminate net zero requirements on gas and oil firms operating in the North Sea if her party wins the next election. The party plans to focus entirely on maximizing extraction of the remaining oil and gas reserves.
Badenoch is expected to announce the plan officially during a speech in Aberdeen, where she will argue that current net zero policies push up household energy bills and harm the economy by placing extra costs on energy producers.
In contrast, the Labour government has pledged to stop issuing new oil and gas exploration licenses.
A Labour spokesperson criticized Badenoch’s plan saying that the Conservatives had already failed to protect the UK’s energy future, adding that more drilling won’t lower bills or improve energy security. They also warned that it would aggravate the current climate crisis.
Earlier this year, the Conservative Party leader signaled a major shift in the party’s climate policy by claiming that achieving net zero by 2050 was impossible. The United Kingdom’s net zero goal, supported by both Conservative and Labour agreements in the past, commits to reducing carbon emissions to the point where any remaining carbon is offset, which is in line with the 2015 Paris Agreement.
Now Badenoch wants to completely scrap the legal obligations for gas and oil producers to reduce emissions or invest in technologies for carbon capture and storage. She called it absurd for the UK to leave valuable energy resources in the ground while countries like Norway were still drilling in the same sea.
Her approach mirrors that of U.S. President Donald Trump, who promoted new fossil fuels extraction under the slogan “drill, baby drill.” It’s a clear break from clean energy investment policies like President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.
Back in 2023, former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak issued 100 new North Sea oil and gas licenses, claiming they were compatible with the UK’s net zero commitments. But since then, major firms have scaled back investment in renewables to focus more on fossil fuels, aiming to boost profits.
Critics have slammed Badenoch’s latest plan as reckless. Uplift’s Executive Director, Tessa Khan, stated that removing even the basic climate rules for the industry would lead to more pollution, more environmental damage, and bigger profits for oil companies, all at the public’s expense.
Liberal Democrat environment spokesperson Tim Farron also referred to Badenoch’s plan as irresponsible environmental vandalism, arguing that the country needed to be a global leader in clean energy, not falling back on old fossil fuel strategies.
The promises being made by Badenoch to maximally exploit the fossil fuel resources in the North Sea illustrate the strong market forces in support of increasing oil and gas extraction around the world. It is therefore not surprising that enterprises like GEMXX Corp. (OTC: GEMZ) are investing considerable resources to explore for new oil and gas resources in Latin America in order to capitalize on the existing and predicted future demand for these forms of energy.
NOTE TO INVESTORS: The latest news and updates relating to GEMXX Corp. (OTC: GEMZ) are available in the company’s newsroom at https://ibn.fm/GEMZ
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