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Most people are well-aware of Reform UK’s energy policy, which is to put it bluntly, drill-baby-drill. The public may be less aware of the Conservative Party’s slide in recent years, from following the general consensus on net zero to being the voice of fossil fuel lobbyists. Kemi Badenoch and her ministers regularly appear on broadcasting media promoting the maxxing out of North Sea oil licences.
The reality of climate change and the need for mitigations is rarely mentioned in these presentations. In fact, the Conservatives have received significant donations from oil and gas investors, and in January 2025 were in receipt of £50,000 from Net Zero Watch, the campaigning arm of the Global Warming Policy Foundation. The party no longer supports the Climate Change Act (2019), the aim of which is to reach net zero emissions by 2050. This was confirmed in a recent tweet by Claire Coutinho, the Shadow Energy Secretary, who in response to the recent heatwave, advocated fossil-fuel powered air conditioning.
The impact of climate change is becoming disturbingly real
The heatwave at the end of May this year was unprecedented, with UK temperature records broken by over 2°C. The graph of climate variables published by the Met Office shows the average temperature in May increasing continuously since 1975 with recent large spikes. During this Spring heatwave, the temperature reached 35.1°C in Kew Gardens, Greater London, exceeding the previous UK May record of 32.8°C in 1944. On 1 June 2026, the Met Office confirmed that Spring 2026 was the warmest on record in England and Wales for mean temperature.
While many people enjoyed basking in the Bank Holiday sunshine, we also saw reports of farmers with desiccated seedlings and written-off crops. Meanwhile, in Ynysybwl, near Pontypridd, the local council imposed a Compulsory Purchase Order on 16 properties (the 19th-century Clydach Terrace) due to a threat to life from increasingly frequent flooding events. These are just snapshots from the last week of May 2026, but they are symptomatic of the realities of climate change in the UK and abroad.
The public is conflicted
It was concerning to view a recent poll by YouGov in which 46% of the public were in favour of allowing new oil and gas developments to be opened in the North Sea. 23% would allow existing oil and gas field extractions to continue, whilst 10% believed that they should be shut down. Amongst Liberal Democrat supporters, 31% were in favour of new developments and 37% would allow existing extractions to continue. This suggests that fossil fuel lobby messaging, that oil and gas are cheap, is getting through to the general public. The fact that increasing the amount of oil pumped from the North sea would not reduce prices at the pump is carefully glossed over, whilst ‘climate change’ is a phrase which is never mentioned.
While the Labour Party can be commended for starting to roll out more infrastructure for renewable energy developments, it is most unhelpful that volatile natural gas, one of the most expensive forms of energy, is still being used to set the price of wholesale electricity.
Home-grown renewable energy is much cheaper, but consumers never see the benefits, handing the fossil-fuel lobbyists a propaganda coup on a plate. As a matter of urgency, the government should disconnect electricity produced by renewable energy from fossil fuel prices. Funding required for investment in green energy infrastructure, such as electricity pylons and sub-stations, should be taken from general taxation, the fairest way to proceed.
Reversing our fossil fuel exit is not a viable strategy
On 31 May 2026, while unofficially campaigning for the Labour leadership, Wes Streeting announced to the press that he supported new oil and gas licences being issued in the North Sea. Perhaps he felt that Tony Blair’s recent intervention legitimised this approach. Short-term political expediency is likely to be the reason for Streeting’s proposal, but there are long-term consequences in continuing with oil and gas extraction, as renewable energy requires a complete system change in transmission and infrastructure which is not compatible with fossil-fuel fired power stations and delivery.
Of the new North Sea oil and gas licences issued in 2010-24 by the Conservative-led administration, the equivalent of 36 days of extra gas and 64 days-worth of oil has been produced, most of the latter exported. This is because there are few reserves left in the North Sea: One of the largest undeveloped gas fields is Jackdaw, but this would produce just 2% of the UK’s requirements. Why is there so much focus on extraction of ‘our’ oil and gas in the North Sea when there is so little remaining? The answer must be to promote a reliance on fossil fuels in general and the retention of the accompanying power stations and infrastructure.
Meanwhile, the Green party under Zac Polanski has left the pitch when it comes to environmental and climate issues, being overwhelmed with entryism from the far left and pro-Gaza activists.
Green shoots from the LibDems
It was heartening to read that the Liberal Democrats are to champion nature conservation and environmentalism as a prime policy area, offering a space to disaffected former Green supporters, particularly those in rural areas. I hope that action on climate change will be included within this plan, which would additionally appeal to younger voters.
The link between carbon emissions and climate change needs to be reinforced
If we are to reduce our carbon emissions and benefit from secure home-produced renewable energy, we must keep the public informed and on board. Climate change seems to have fallen away from public discourse during the last few years. The current strategy of the denial lobby appears to be that anthropomorphic climate change must be ignored, shut down and kept out of minds; the burning of fossil fuels must be disconnected from the well-presented climate data which we can easily access (e.g. from the Met Office), and from the evidence of our own lives.
Much of the mainstream media have discussed the recent heatwave in some detail, but have not linked such events with the burning of fossil fuels. Now is the time for Liberal Democrats to use their voices in a measured and evidenced way, putting the C-word back on the podium, centre stage.
Links and references
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Global_Warming_Policy_Foundation
https://x.com/ClaireCoutinho/status/2059677691729875165, 27 May 2026
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/maps-and-data/uk-temperature-rainfall-and-sunshine-time-series; https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/blog/2026/record-breaking-heat-rewrites-may-temperature-records-across-the-uk; https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/news-and-media/media-centre/weather-and-climate-news/2026/warmest-spring-on-record-for-england-and-wales–third-warmest-for-uk
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgz3zj1d99o, 25 May 2026
Also, BBC Wales Today.
https://x.com/YouGov/status/2060388488483069976, YouGov polling, 29 May 2026
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2026/05/30/lib-dems-become-eco-warriors-as-greens-give-up-on-nature/ https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cz7220e44dgt https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cz7220e44dgt
