The Weald Action Group responded to the Environmental Audit Committee’s inquiry examining the Government’s policies for securing energy supplies and accelerating the transition from fossil fuels.
We made the following overall points:
- The framing of the current situation in the UK as an energy crisis is misleading and unhelpful. What we are facing is a fossil fuel price crisis. Continued investment in new oil and gas developments will do nothing to alleviate this.
- Protecting consumers against rising energy prices can best be served by a concerted effort to ramp up renewable electricity generation, invest in energy storage and drastically improve the energy efficiency of existing UK homes (including the retrofitting of electric heating systems where possible).
- Unfortunately, past and current political focus regarding energy security is heavily skewed towards ramping up energy production including oil and gas, ignoring the significant potential to reduce energy demand which would save consumers money and generate skilled jobs.
- The further exploitation of North Sea oil and gas reserves and the consideration of a potential lifting of the moratorium on onshore hydraulic fracturing to develop the shale gas resource will not relieve short term supply constraints; will perpetuate our dependence on fossil fuels and continue to expose us to fluctuating global oil and gas prices; and, in the absence of a worldwide cap on fossil fuel extraction, will contribute to the climate crisis.
Read our response in full: WAG response to EAC