Ahead of the debate in Parliament today of the Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill, Christian Aid's Chief of UK Advocacy & Policy, Sophie Powell, said the UK Government risked trashing its record on the environment. She said:
“Only last month at COP28 in Dubai, the UK committed to transition away from fossil fuels and take urgent action in this ‘critical decade’ to reduce emissions. Now the Government seems intent on breaking that carefully constructed international consensus by pressing on with not reducing fossil fuels but expanding them. The science is clear that until we start leaving fossil fuels in the ground, floods, storms, droughts and heatwaves will only continue to worsen.
“From hosting COP26 in Glasgow, to now undermining the outcome of COP28, the Government is trashing it’s record on the environment. All political parties should be committing to end all oil and gas expansion; to making big bold investments in green energy; and to taxing polluters to help pay for the climate damage faced by those in the global south on the front line of this crisis.”
