The Iran war has triggered another fossil-fuel energy crisis, with surging global prices and increasing concerns over energy security.
In the UK, many newspapers, opposition politicians and other public figures have used the crisis to argue in favour of issuing more licences for oil and gas drilling in the North Sea.
These arguments have also been amplified in AI-generated posts on social media, shared by fake accounts that usually post anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim content.
However, many of these arguments rest on false or misleading claims about the impact that further drilling could have on the UK’s bills, energy security, emissions and tax revenue.
The North Sea is a “mature basin” where production has been falling for decades, because most of the oil and gas it once contained has already been extracted.
While it would be possible to slow the rate of decline in oil and gas output from the North Sea, the quantities that would be economic to extract are disputed.
Overall, the transition to clean-energy supplies is expected to be far more effective at boosting UK energy security and reducing reliance on imports.
Moreover, the climate-change arguments for limiting fossil-fuel production, which have been made by scientists, the UN secretary general and even the Pope, remain as valid as ever.
Below, Carbon Brief factchecks some of the most common claims about North Sea oil and gas.
- FALSE: ‘Reopening the North Sea would lower bills’
- MISLEADING: ‘Energy from the North Sea generates a lot less CO2’
- FALSE: ‘Britain is a resource-rich nation that has chosen dependency’
- FALSE: North Sea is ‘best way to protect us from volatility and provide energy security’
- MISLEADING: ‘The head honchos of the green lobby say we should drill’
- FALSE: ‘The UK is the only country in the world banning new oil and gas licenses’
- MISLEADING: ‘With new North Sea licences would come thousands of jobs’
- MISLEADING: North Sea drilling ‘would secure a rush of revenue into the Treasury’
- FALSE: Ed Miliband is an ‘anti-North Sea’ climate change ‘fanatic’
FALSE: ‘Reopening the North Sea would lower bills’
Many right-leaning newspapers and commentators have falsely argued that opening up new oil and gas fields in the North Sea would lower energy bills in the UK.
There is no evidence to support such claims. Indeed, numerous experts have explained that new drilling would make no difference to bills in the UK.
For example, the Daily Express carried fact-free assertions from the hard-right, climate-sceptic Reform party on its frontpage under the headline: “Get drilling to stop bills soaring.” Despite the UK not using oil to generate power, it claimed:
“Open[ing] up the UK’s biggest oil field [would] stop power bills soaring.”
At the beginning of March, US president Donald Trump told the Sun that his advice to UK prime minister Keir Starmer would be:
“Open up the North Sea. Immediately. Your energy prices are through the roof.”
In the Daily Telegraph, an “energy consultant” called Kathryn Porter, who has authored “papers” for climate-sceptic lobbyists, listed why she thinks more drilling could cut energy bills under the headline: “Reopening the North Sea would lower bills.”
On Twitter, Reform said the Labour and Conservative governments had “failed the British people” by “refusing to drill in the North Sea”. It added that more drilling would make “Britain energy independent once again” and “bring down bills”.
Contrary to these claims, numerous experts have said that further drilling in the North Sea would do nothing to cut bills, because UK energy prices are set on international markets.
In 2022, the Climate Change Committee (CCC) wrote that increased UK extraction was not expected to “materially affect global oil or gas prices, as the UK energy market is highly connected to international markets and the potential supply [is] relatively small”.
It added that, even if all proven UK reserves and resources of gas from new fields were extracted, this would only meet about 1% of European demand each year up to 2050.
Jack Sharples, senior research fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies (OEIS), tells Carbon Brief that “you’re not going to bring prices down versus the current level, because you’re not going to be able to produce very much more [from the North Sea]”.
The Labour government has made similar arguments, saying in a “factsheet” on the Iran crisis that the UK is a “price-taker…not [a] price-maker”. It said:
“Future exploration in the North Sea is too marginal to make a difference to the overall supply in an international market…New licences to explore new fields wouldn’t make any difference to the prices set by international markets and paid by UK billpayers.”
Even shadow energy secretary Claire Coutinho, who has advocated strongly for further drilling, admitted in 2023 that new licenses “wouldn’t necessarily bring energy bills down”.
The North Sea is a “mature basin”, with around 90% of what it contained “already drained dry”. Most of what is produced for the basin is now oil, around 80% of which is exported.
In addition, oil and gas reserves are owned by private companies once licences are issued and the fuel is sold at international rates. Therefore, whether it is produced in the North Sea or elsewhere, its price is driven by the global market.
Moreover, the limited quantity of gas left in the ageing North Sea basin would do little to impact international markets and, thus, little to impact international prices.
Climate YouTuber Simon Clark discusses whether more North Sea oil and gas drilling could lower energy bills in the UK.
Recent analysis by the Smith School at the University of Oxford found that, even if the UK maximised North Sea oil and gas and used all revenues from the sector to subsidise lower energy bills, the impact would be limited. Under this unlikely scenario household bills could fall between £16 and £82 per year, or 1-4.6% a year.
The fact that further oil and gas production in the North Sea would have a limited impact on energy bills has been noted repeatedly, even by those in favour of drilling in the North Sea.
For example, in a separate comment piece in the Daily Telegraph calling on the UK to “max out on both renewables and North Sea oil and gas”, world economy editor Ambrose Evans Pritchard wrote:
“Reopening the North Sea would not make any difference to the current crisis, nor any difference to gas and petrol prices in the UK, since the volumes are too small to shift the traded global market.”
As such, the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) explained in a recent note:
“Squeezing additional oil and gas production from the UK may be technically possible, but it will have [a] negligible impact on the UK cost of living”.
MISLEADING: ‘Energy from the North Sea generates a lot less CO2’
Many North Sea advocates argue that drilling more in the basin would mean lower carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, due to the high emissions from imported fossil fuels.
This is a line often used by the oil-and-gas industry itself, with the trade body Offshore Energies UK (OEUK) stating that “North Sea gas has a lower emissions footprint than liquified natural gas (LNG) from overseas”.
Additionally, it is an argument that is sometimes used by commentators who – in other circumstances – would not be making the case for low-carbon policies.
For example, in a Mail on Sunday column, the climate-sceptic journalist Andrew Neil wrote that “giving the North Sea a new lease of life” would:
“Even lower carbon emissions (because piping in energy from the North Sea generates a lot less CO2 than importing it).”
Conservative shadow energy secretary, Claire Coutinho, has also used this approach to question the government’s supposed opposition to North Sea drilling, writing in the Daily Telegraph:
“Doing so in the name of climate change when our own gas has four times fewer emissions than the LNG we’ll need to import instead? Unforgivable.”
The claim that UK gas from the North Sea produces “a lot less CO2” – and particularly the commonly cited “four times fewer emissions” figure used by Coutinho – is misleading.
It references the fact that imported LNG has higher overall emissions than North Sea gas, due to the energy-intensive processes needed to liquify, transport and regasify it.
However, as the chart below shows, the vast majority of emissions from gas result from burning it to produce energy.
When CO2 from gas combustion is taken into account, LNG emissions are not four times lower than North Sea gas emissions, but 15% lower.
The UK is reliant on LNG imports from a handful of countries, notably the US and Qatar. However, at present these imports make up only around 15% of the UK’s gas.
Of the remaining gas used in the UK, roughly half is produced domestically and the rest comes via pipeline from Norway. Norwegian pipeline gas has even lower emissions than UK supplies.
More broadly, analysis by the Climate Change Committee in 2022 found that, despite the small “emissions advantage” of UK domestic production replacing imports, this could be wiped out if increased UK production led to more fossil-fuel production overall.
FALSE: ‘Britain is a resource-rich nation that has chosen dependency’
One frequent false claim is that the UK has “chosen” to become reliant on fossil-fuel imports, as a result of policy decisions made by successive governments.
In fact, import dependency has primarily increased because most of the oil and gas in the North Sea has already been used up. It is a “mature basin” with falling output.
In the Daily Telegraph for example, Diana Furchtgott-Roth, former climate director at the Heritage Foundation, a US-based climate-sceptic lobby group, stated that the UK has “chosen dependency”. She wrote:
“[The UK] is not a resource-poor nation forced to depend on foreign suppliers. It is a resource-rich nation that has chosen dependency through planning rules, regulatory obstruction and a net-zero framework that treats domestic oil and gas production as a moral failing rather than a strategic necessity.”
It is true that the UK has become increasingly reliant on fossil-fuel imports. The country was a net energy exporter in 2000, but, by 2010, was dependent on imports for 30% of its energy supplies. On the same metric, the UK’s net import dependency reached 44% in 2024.
This is largely because UK fossil-fuel production peaked decades ago. Gas production in the North Sea fell by 74% between 2000 and 2025, while oil output fell by 75%.
Gas production is set to fall to 99% below 2025 levels by 2050 and oil is set to fall 94%, according to the government’s North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA). Even with further drilling, the NSTA expects gas output to fall by 97% and oil by 91%, as shown below.
Production has been in an inexorable decline for decades despite strongly supportive government policy through most of the period, including tax breaks and new licensing.
Contrary to the narrative that rising import dependency has been a policy choice, the main reason why production is falling is that the North Sea is a “mature basin”. In other words, most of the oil and gas it once contained has already been extracted and burned.
According to the thinktank Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), around 90% of the oil and gas that is likely to be produced from the North Sea has already been burned.
A related argument, aired on Sky News in mid-March 2026, is that the NSTA projections have been revised downwards over time, as a result of government policy. The idea is that there is more oil and gas available, but the government has “chosen” to ignore it.
Yet for gas, there is little difference between the NSTA projections published before and after the government’s 2024 election win and its decision to ban new licensing, as shown below.
While the NSTA projections for oil have shifted more noticeably between 2023 and 2026, this largely relates to output from existing fields, rather than the potential from new drilling.
There are a variety of other reasons why the NSTA projections have changed, notably including the economic viability of North Sea production.
Until the recent Iran war, UK oil prices had been declining steadily since the highs seen in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
This will have eroded the economics of North Sea production, particularly as the cost of extraction has gone up by roughly 40% since 2019.
A final claim relating to government policy choices is that the UK has, in the words of a recent Sun editorial, become “heavily dependent on imported energy because of unreliable wind and solar, and the government’s obsession with net-zero”.
This makes no sense – it is the opposite of the truth. Wind and solar generated more than 100 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity in the UK last year, meeting a third of total demand.
Carbon Brief analysis shows that generating the same electricity from gas would have required around 200TWh of fuel, equivalent to three-quarters of UK imports of liquified natural gas (LNG).
In other words, without its fleet of what the Sun calls “unreliable wind and solar”, the UK would have needed to nearly double its LNG imports.
FALSE: North Sea is ‘best way to protect us from volatility and provide energy security’
The effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz has triggered the worst energy crisis since the 1970s and has reignited debate over how best to ensure the UK’s energy security.
Many politicians, newspaper editorials and comment articles have argued that getting more oil and gas out from under the North Sea would cut UK fossil-fuel imports and boost energy security.
Some have gone so far as to argue that the North Sea is the “best way” or “the” answer to ensuring UK energy security. This is clearly false. So too is the idea – promoted by the hard-right, climate-sceptic Reform party – that the UK could become “energy independent” by expanding North Sea production.
For example, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch wrote a comment piece for the Sunday Telegraph under the headline: “Drilling the North Sea is the answer to the energy crisis.”
Meanwhile, Enrique Cornejo, energy policy director at North Sea industry trade association Offshore Energies UK (OEUK), told the Times:
“Current events demonstrate that the best way to protect us from volatility and provide energy security is to maximise our homegrown energy resources.”
The potential for extra oil and gas output is disputed, but not even the North Sea oil and gas industry claims that it could reverse the decades-long decline in production.
Analysis by the National Energy System Operator (NESO) shows that the transition to clean energy would boost UK energy security by significantly reducing fossil-fuel imports. In contrast, it says that imports would rise if the UK boosts domestic oil and gas production but fails to decarbonise.
The UK has been increasingly reliant on energy imports since 2003. This is because UK oil and gas production from the North Sea has fallen by roughly three-quarters since 2000. (See: FALSE: “Britain is a resource-rich nation that has chosen dependency.”)
The UK’s reliance on fossil-fuel imports is set to increase even further, as North Sea production continues to decline. The NSTA says oil output will fall to 94% below 2025 levels by 2050 – or 91% with new drilling. For gas, the figures are 99% and 97%, respectively.
OEUK and other advocates for the oil and gas sector dispute these figures, claiming that higher production would be possible if there are changes in government policy.
For example, a report commissioned by OEUK put forward a “high case” for North Sea production over the coming decades, predicated on what it calls “significant changes to tax, licensing and regulatory approvals”. Notably, this still showed steep declines in output.
The OEUK-commissioned report also looked at an even more optimistic “no constraints” case for higher North Sea. However, the report authors, consultancy Westwood Energy, described this as “beyond realistic assumptions”. It said:
“The ‘no constraints’ case is considered to be beyond realistic assumptions given the current regulatory and fiscal conditions and investor sentiment. For this case to be realised, major industry change would be required.”
Similarly, OEUK has published a scenario for North Sea gas production that it calls “upside potential”, in which output is held close to current levels for the next decade.
It has used these scenarios to argue that the decline in North Sea gas output is “not inevitable”. However, the details behind these claims are opaque.
The “upside potential” scenario is based on what OEUK describes as “data provided by OEUK members” and it assumes that the government immediately scraps the “energy profits levy” (EPL, known as the windfall tax, see below).
OEUK claims that this scenario is “not speculative” and that it “clearly demonstrate[s] that the decline in potential supply indicated by NSTA forecasts is the result of policy choices”.
On this point, it is worth reiterating that the NSTA forecasts for gas barely changed in response to the election of the current government in 2024, as illustrated above.
Ultimately, while it is clear that most of the oil and gas that was once under the North Sea has already been burned, significant resources do remain.
The key question is how much of this remaining oil and gas is both technically and economically recoverable under current policies and prices – and if policies were changed.
OEIS’s Jack Sharples tells Carbon Brief that the North Sea is a “very mature basin” and that “nobody’s talking about increased production versus current levels”. He continues:
“Even if licences were to be made available for further exploration and production, that would result in a little bit of extra supply over the next 12 months, let’s say, but obviously not a huge amount…We’re just talking about slowing down the rate of decline.”
Sharples adds that, nevertheless, he thinks it is “worth maximising whatever we can produce in the North Sea”.
Recent Carbon Brief analysis found that expanding clean-energy supplies would have a larger impact on UK gas imports than an increase in North Sea drilling, as shown below.
(This analysis was based on NSTA projections of possible extra North Sea gas output, which amounted to 16TWh in 2030. If the OEUK “upside potential” scenario could be realised, the extra gas would amount to further 108TWh, equivalent to around 90 LNG tankers.)
An additional aspect to this relates to timescales. It takes an estimated 28 years for new licenses to result in new oil and gas production, according to official figures.
The industry says fields that already have licenses, such as Rosebank and Jackdaw, could be developed more quickly, if they receive planning consent. The previous Conservative government had consented to these fields being developed, but this was overturned in the courts. The Labour government is in the process of considering whether to approve them.
(The new wind and solar projects from the latest renewable auction, which concluded in February 2026, are set to be operating by or around 2030.)
In a March 2026 note, the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) said that drilling for oil and gas “will not reduce bills or deliver energy security”. Instead, it said that “demand reduction should be a core focus of UK gas security”.
In the longer term, the National Energy System Operator (NESO) says that meeting the UK’s net-zero target would cut the country’s dependency on imported gas to 78% below current levels, whereas failing to decarbonise would see imports rising by a third as production falls.
At a recent parliamentary hearing, Miliband told MPs that this illustrated why “decarbonisation is essential for energy security”. He added that turning away from net-zero would leave the UK “really, really exposed”.
Octopus boss Greg Jackson said in a recent government press release: “Every solar panel, heat pump and battery cuts bills and boosts Britain’s energy independence.”
MISLEADING: ‘The head honchos of the green lobby say we should drill’
Numerous media outlets have picked up on supportive comments from what the Daily Telegraph has called “net zero’s champions”, backing the use of North Sea oil and gas.
Writing in the Daily Telegraph, shadow energy secretary Claire Coutinho said:
“From the wind lobbyists at RenewableUK to the chair of Great British Energy (Miliband’s ‘clean energy’ propaganda outfit), the head honchos of the green lobby say we should drill.”
This point was similarly made in an editorial in the Sun, which stated that “Octopus energy chief Greg Jackson…and even the head of RenewableUK have called for North Sea reserves to be reopened urgently”.
These comments were in reference to a handful of specific interventions that, in reality, were far more nuanced than simply calling for more drilling. Indeed, some of the so-called “net-zero champions” have clarified that they are not calling for new licenses at all.
In the Daily Telegraph, Tara Singh, chief executive of RenewableUK, wrote that “it is entirely sensible to support continued domestic oil and gas production in the North Sea”.
Similarly, Jackson wrote in the Daily Telegraph that “we should use what’s available from the North Sea”.
The Daily Telegraph published news stories to accompany both of these articles with the headlines “wind industry chief urges Miliband to restart North Sea drilling” and “Miliband must reopen the North Sea, Octopus boss says”.
On LinkedIn, Juergen Maier, chair of the government’s publicly owned, clean-energy company Great British Energy, set out several arguments in favour of more North Sea production.
These included slowing job losses in the region, the lower carbon intensity of North Sea oil and gas compared with imports and extra production supporting tax revenues.
His comments were picked up by the Financial Times and the Daily Telegraph, with the latter saying the comments from “Miliband’s clean-energy tsar” will “raise eyebrows”.
However, neither Singh, Jackson nor Maier called for new oil and gas licences – and they stressed that North Sea oil and gas will not bring down energy bills.
In fact, their position is similar to that of the UK government, which sees domestic fossil fuels playing an “important and valuable role” into the future.
Singh wrote: “Being serious about the UK’s important role in gas also means being honest about its limitations. The North Sea is a mature basin, not a limitless national asset.”
She added that politicians should not imply that more domestic drilling would bring down energy bills, as “it will not”. Instead, she wrote that new renewable generation offers “better value” for consumers, both when gas prices are normal and at “crisis levels”. (See: FALSE: “Reopening the North Sea would lower bills.”)
Expanding on her piece on Twitter, Singh clarified “we don’t represent the [oil and gas] sector and we’re not arguing for or against new licences”, adding:
“Before anyone gets too excited: I’m calling for a depoliticised conversation about energy in the UK – not an overhaul of policy to favour oil and gas.”
In his comment for the Daily Telegraph, Jackson added:
“We’re kidding ourselves if we think this is a panacea – it’s 20 years since the North Sea could meet all our needs – we’ve depleted the most abundant reserves and the remainder will be less productive and more expensive. But it makes sense to use what we have whilst we’re so dependent on gas.”
His article, titled “My plan to safeguard Britain’s energy supplies”, only briefly mentioned the North Sea and stressed the importance of “reduc[ing] our dependency on gas”.
He continued to set out other potential steps for increasing energy security and bringing down bills, including building nuclear efficiently, cutting energy waste, reforming the electricity market, rolling out domestic renewable generation and breaking the link between gas and electricity that “lets global chaos dictate our prices”.
In a follow-up interview with Jackson in the Independent, which emphasised these alternatives, he added that the UK was “deluding” itself if it thinks it can “get enough out of the North Sea and in a market where the price is set internationally”.
For his part, Maier clarified on LinkedIn that he was a supporter of a “ managed energy transition” making use of all available energy sources, but adding that this includes “the end game being mostly renewable energy generation”.
He also explicitly rejected the notion that more North Sea oil and gas would bring down bills, noting: “It doesn’t; indeed, energy costs are rising at this very moment because of fossil fuels.” Again, this mirrors the view expressed by government ministers.
Maier also subsequently pushed back against the media coverage of his original comments, writing in a follow-up post on LinkedIn that the claim he was pressuring Miliband over North Sea drilling was “wrong” and that he is “fully supportive of the government position”. He added:
“I see this as consistent with an ‘all energy’ approach to the transition. That the end game is renewables and that we need to give supply chain companies enough time to transition. I have said this numerous times in many speeches and posts here.”
FALSE: ‘The UK is the only country in the world banning new oil and gas licenses’
On LinkedIn, Conservative politician and shadow energy secretary Claire Coutinho claimed that the “UK is the only country in the world banning new oil and gas licenses”.
Her comment was made in response to a post about Denmark, which, in 2020, made a landmark decision to stop issuing new oil and gas licences and end all fossil-fuel extraction by 2050.
The post noted that Denmark is now considering “extending one or more production licenses” in the Danish North Sea, in response to the energy crisis.
However, as Coutinho surely knows, this is not the same as issuing new licences – and is more comparable to Labour’s move to allow some additional “tieback” drilling at existing fields, announced in 2025.
Denmark and the UK are not the only countries to end new oil and gas licences. Other nations to do so include Ireland, France, Portugal and Colombia.
In fact, there is an international coalition of nations that have pledged to end new oil and gas production, known as the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance (BOGA).
This group is helping to convene the first meeting of nations that want to take immediate action to phase out fossil fuels, which is taking place in Santa Marta, Colombia, in April. Around 40-80 nations are expected to attend.
Carbon Brief understands that the UK will have a senior representative at the conference.
Despite showing its support for BOGA, the UK is currently not a member. A senior official once told Carbon Brief that this is because the UK does not currently meet the required end date for stopping all fossil-fuel production.
MISLEADING: ‘With new North Sea licences would come thousands of jobs’
Addressing parliament in March, Nigel Farage, the leader of the hard-right, climate-sceptic Reform UK party, claimed that with new North Sea oil and gas licences “would come thousands of jobs”, according to the Herald.
As noted above, the issuing of new exploration licences would only make a small difference to future production in a basin that is in irreversible decline.
Official statistics show the decline of the basin caused direct jobs in oil and gas production to fall by a third between 2014 and 2023. Indeed, according to the government, more than 70,000 jobs have been lost in the last decade alone.
This decline has occurred despite the previous Conservative government, which was in power from 2010-24, holding six new licensing rounds and issuing hundreds of new licences.
The Norwegian oil-and-gas company Equinor has claimed that, if approved, its large oil project, Rosebank, could create up to 1,600 jobs while at the height of its construction phase. (Rosebank has a licence, but has not yet obtained final consent from the government.)
However, analysis by the North Sea non-profit Uplift says that this figure is “inflated” and that the project would only create 255 jobs over its lifetime.
As part of its “North Sea future plan” announced in 2025, the current Labour government has pledged to establish the “North Sea jobs service” – a national employment programme offering support for oil and gas workers seeking new opportunities in clean energy, defence and advanced manufacturing.
However, campaigners have warned that the plan does not go far enough.
In 2023, the UK’s Climate Change Committee (CCC) published an analysis of how jobs might change as the country strives for its legally binding net-zero target.
Its review of available data suggested that the gradual phase-down of high-emitting sectors, such as oil and gas production, could lead to there being 8,000-75,000 workers “whose jobs cannot continue in their current form”. (It notes that the wide range is due to “much uncertainty in these estimates”.)
But it added that this would be outweighed by “extensive job creation”. It estimated that there could be between 135,000-725,000 new jobs created by the transition to net-zero, in sectors such as renewable energy generation, retrofitting and electric vehicles.
This job creation is not “guaranteed” and is dependent on the government implementing measures to support and upskill its workforce on the journey to net-zero, the CCC noted.
A report published this week by the Renewable Energy Association, the UK’s largest renewables trade body, found that jobs in renewable energy in the UK now outstrip those in oil and gas.
According to the figures, there were 145,000 jobs in the renewable energy sector in 2025, compared with 115,000 in oil and gas.
MISLEADING: North Sea drilling ‘would secure a rush of revenue into the Treasury’
One common argument in favour of more North Sea drilling is that the sector provides an important source of tax revenue for the government.
An editorial in the climate-sceptic Daily Telegraph claimed that “tapping” new North Sea oil and gas “would not resolve the problem of high energy prices”, but would “secure a rush of revenue into the Treasury and provide households and businesses struggling under current circumstances with a helping hand”.
The tax revenue argument is often made by North Sea proponents who try to position themselves as being even-handed and moderate, as illustrated in recent columns in the Guardian and Observer.
However, the idea that new projects would usher in significant revenue is highly misleading.
The Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR), the UK’s independent fiscal watchdog, in March forecast that total UK oil and gas venues are expected to fall from £6bn in 2024-25 to just £0.1bn by 2030-31. (This is at baseline prices that do not consider the current energy crisis.)
Part of this decline comes from the expected end of the windfall tax, a levy first introduced by the Conservative government in 2022 in response to soaring oil-and-gas company profits fuelled by the end of Covid restrictions and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
(Many proponents of North Sea oil and gas have repeatedly called for an end to the windfall tax, while also frequently talking up the tax benefits from oil-and-gas production.)
However, the downgraded OBR forecast also reflects the decline of production in the basin as resources dry up, a shrinking tax base and falling prices, says Daniel Jones, head of research, policy and legal at the campaign group Uplift. He tells Carbon Brief:
“Even the windfall receipts generated during a genuine price crisis are temporary and price-dependent. At normal prices, the basin contributes very little. The structural decline continues regardless of the spike.”
As old oil and gas assets reach the end of their lives, the companies behind them are able to access significant tax relief for decommissioning costs, “further reducing the net contribution to the public finances”, says Jones.
(In some years, this tax relief has meant that far from being a source of revenue, certain oil and gas companies have been paid money by the exchequer.)
In addition, new developments “tend to be smaller and more expensive than the fields they replace”, Jones says, leading to the government offering large tax deductions for exploration, drilling and construction costs from 2014 onwards. He continues:
“These deductions can wipe out any taxable profit for years, meaning the Treasury collects nothing until investment costs have been fully offset. By the time a new field generates net tax receipts, it may be well into its production life – if prices and production hold up long enough to get there at all.”
An analysis by Uplift and NGO WWF Norway in 2025 found that the Rosebank oil field currently seeking development consent from the government could, in a “base-case scenario”, lead to £258m in net losses for the UK, due to the reasons set out above.
FALSE: Ed Miliband is an ‘anti-North Sea’ climate change ‘fanatic’
A huge amount of the criticism of the UK government’s position on North Sea oil and gas has been personally levelled at one man: Ed Miliband.
The energy secretary has been repeatedly labelled by opposition politicians and their media allies as “dangerous” and a “fanatic” with a “cult-like conviction”, because of his reported opposition to more drilling in the North Sea.
Miliband’s Conservative counterpart, Claire Coutinho, wrote in the Daily Telegraph:
“As the world gets more dangerous, [Miliband’s] anti-North Sea fanaticism is making Britain weaker and poorer.”
As with much of the criticism aimed at Miliband in right-leaning media, these attacks are often highly personal. The Sun’s US editor-at-large, Harry Cole, referred to Miliband as a “Greta [Thunberg]-loving Marxist, who has never seen a market he doesn’t want to destroy”.
In fact, Miliband is simply the energy minister in a government that has explicitly prioritised climate policies and transitioning away from fossil fuels.
Labour’s 2024 manifesto for the general election in which the party won an overwhelming victory and, hence, mandate stated:
“We will not issue new licences to explore new [North Sea] fields because they will not take a penny off bills, cannot make us energy secure and will only accelerate the worsening climate crisis.”
While the government has repeatedly ruled out new licences, it is considering approving several new projects at sites that have already received licences, but not consent to begin development.
It has also announced new “transitional energy certificates”, which will allow new oil and gas production at or near existing sites.
As for Miliband, his views are far more moderate than the “fanatical” ones portrayed by his detractors.
The energy secretary has been clear that he expects the UK to continue producing oil and gas even as it transitions to net-zero, writing in a recent Observer article:
“As we build our clean-energy future, North Sea production continues to play an important and valuable role, which is why we are keeping existing oil and gasfields open for their lifetime.”
Arguing against more expansion, Miliband noted that the North Sea is a “maturing basin” and that “new exploration licences are simply too marginal to have a meaningful impact on levels of oil and gas production”.
The post Factcheck: Nine false or misleading myths about North Sea oil and gas appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Factcheck: Nine false or misleading myths about North Sea oil and gas
Antarctic sea ice has recorded its third-smallest winter peak extent since satellite records began 48 years ago, new data reveals.
Provisional data from the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) shows that Antarctic sea ice hit its annual winter peak on 14 September, with an extent of 17.59m square kilometres (km2).
The organisation notes that the data is still preliminary, adding that “large fluctuations in extent are typical of Antarctic sea ice near the seasonal maximum”.
One expert tells Carbon Brief that it is “concerning to see these low values persisting”, but says that scientists need more time to determine whether this represents a “structural shift” in Antarctic sea ice extent.
Meanwhile, at the Earth’s other pole, Arctic sea ice reached its annual minimum on 12 September, ranking as the joint-10th lowest in the satellite record.
The NSIDC notes that the last 20 years have seen the lowest 20 Arctic sea ice extents in the satellite record.
Antarctic peak
Dr Lettie Roach, a polar climate scientist at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany, tells Carbon Brief that this year’s Antarctic sea ice maximum was “well below average for the season”. She warns that, “after several decades of stable or increasing winter Antarctic sea ice conditions, it is concerning to see these low values persisting”.
She adds:
“Compared with the Arctic, it’s less clear how recent changes in Antarctic sea ice are attributable to human-caused warming vs natural variability. We need more years of observations to better understand whether this is truly a structural shift.”
Dr Clare Eayrs, a postdoctoral researcher at the Korea Polar Research Institute (KOPRI), tells Carbon Brief that, since recording a “near-average February minimum” extent, Antarctic sea ice has “returned to unusually low winter coverage”.
She notes that Antarctic sea ice extent in July and August this year were the fifth and fourth lowest on record, respectively, adding that “all five of the lowest July extents have occurred since 2022 and all four of the lowest August extents since 2023”.
The chart below shows Antarctic sea ice extent in 2025 (dark blue) and 2026 (red) so far. For comparison, the chart shows decadal averages (dotted lines) as well as 2023 (mid blue), the year of the smallest winter sea-ice maximum on record.
Eayrs tells Carbon Brief that the regional pattern of Antarctic sea ice cover “changed substantially during the growth season”.
For example, she says that “in April, the Bellingshausen Sea remained almost entirely ice-free, while the neighbouring Amundsen Sea had more ice than usual”.
However, by late August, changes in atmospheric pressure and wind meant that “the Bellingshausen deficit had largely recovered, while ice was unusually scarce in the Amundsen Sea and across much of East Antarctica”.
Arctic minimum
Meanwhile, the Arctic recorded its minimum summer sea ice extent on 12 September. At 4.60m km2, this year ties with 2025, 2010 and 2008 as the 10th-lowest sea ice extent on record.
The chart below shows Arctic sea ice extent in 2025 (dark blue) and 2026 (red) so far. For comparison, the chart shows decadal averages (dotted lines) as well as 2012 (mid blue), the year of the smallest summer sea-ice minimum on record.
Roach tells Carbon Brief that although this minimum is not “record setting”, it is still “lower than any sea ice minimum before 2007”. She adds:
“Human-caused climate change has reduced Arctic sea ice cover and thickness, so the region is fundamentally different compared to a few decades ago.”
Scientists have been tracking Arctic sea ice thickness using a reanalysis produced called the Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) since 1979.
In March 2026, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) terminated a global dataset of air pressure that scientists relied upon to produce PIOMAS, forcing both datasets to stop publishing updates.
The PIOMAS website says it will take “considerable effort and time” to find alternative data to use in their reanalysis. It adds that “we don’t yet have a good sense if that’s possible with available funds and if so, when we will be able to resume production of a new PIOMAS timeseries”.
Roach also notes that August saw record-breaking heat sweep across much of the world, explaining that high temperatures “extended into Arctic coastal regions, close to regions with substantial sea ice loss – particularly the Barents-Kara and East Siberian seas”.
Dr Zack Labe, a scientist at Climate Central, tells Carbon Brief that the absence of a new record does not mean that ice cover is becoming more “resilient”. He says:
“Local weather patterns across the Arctic play a really important role in year-to-year sea-ice extent, even as the long-term trend is clearly downward.”
Labe tells Carbon Brief that weather in the Arctic this summer was “influenced mainly by lower pressure toward the central Arctic, which brought cloudier and cooler conditions that limited surface melt and delayed the start of the melt season”.
He explains that this “was most obvious across parts of the Beaufort and Chukchi seas, where the melt season didn’t really kick off until after early July, which was more than two weeks later than normal”.
In contrast, he says, the Atlantic side of the Arctic “had a much more extreme summer”, with sea ice in the Barents Sea recording its “earliest melt-out on record”.
This was partly due to “unusually warm air and ocean temperatures”, Labe says. He notes, for example, that parts of western Siberia saw unusually persistent temperatures more than 5C above the 1981-2010 average for much of the summer, which extended out over the Kara Sea and contributed to substantial ice melt in this area”.
Labe tells Carbon Brief that, going forward, scientists need “more data and observations of other sea-ice metrics, like ice thickness, which may give us better insight into the overall condition of the ice pack, especially during years like 2026 when it is very fragmented”.
(In March 2026, Arctic sea ice reached its peak extent for this winter, clocking in as the joint-smallest in a satellite record going back almost half a century.)
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The post ‘Concerning’ low sea ice persists as Antarctic hits third-lowest winter peak appeared first on Carbon Brief.
‘Concerning’ low sea ice persists as Antarctic hits third-lowest winter peak
Participants at COP31 in Antalya will have a “duty” not to interfere in Türkiye’s internal affairs under the country’s hosting deal with the UN, reviving a clause dropped for last year’s climate summit in Brazil that human rights groups warn could put activists at risk.
Türkiye has faced growing criticism from human rights groups over the jailing of opposition figures, journalists and activists and imposed a blanket protest ban around July’s summit of the NATO military alliance in Ankara.
The contested provision is included in the binding agreement between the UN climate secretariat and the Turkish government that sets out responsibilities over logistical arrangements and details participants’ rights and obligations.
The document, signed in June but only made public on Wednesday, gives accredited COP31 attendees immunity from legal action over what they say, write or do in connection with the conference. Climate Home News understands that this safeguard can be applied to what takes place both inside and, in certain circumstances, outside of the UN-controlled COP “Blue Zone”. For the first time, this protection explicitly continues after the summit ends.
But participants enjoying these “privileges and immunities” also have a duty to respect Türkiye’s laws and regulations and not to interfere in its internal affairs, the agreement states. Rights groups fear its wide-ranging formulation could be used to discourage criticism of the host government.
Climate Home News understands that whether an action is covered by the immunity or infringes on the host’s internal affairs would be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, with close coordination between the country’s authorities and the UN climate change body.
A separate provision states that immunity shall be waived where the UN believes it would “impede the course of justice”.
‘Chilling effect’
Those same provisions featured in the host country agreements for COP28 in the United Arab Emirates and COP29 in Azerbaijan, both regarded as authoritarian regimes, before being dropped for COP30 in Brazil.
Ann Harrison, climate justice policy advisor at Amnesty International, said it is “extremely disappointing” that the COP31 agreement re-introduced clauses that could “hinder the ability of human rights defenders and civil society organisations to conduct their work safely”.
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She added the provisions could have a “wider chilling effect” on rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, given concerns over the human rights situation in Türkiye, including laws that “have shrunk civic space” and their “abusive” implementation by authorities.
The UN climate change body declined to comment.
Rights groups have documented blanket protest bans, unlawful use of force by the police and prosecutions of journalists, human rights defenders and lawyers across Türkiye in the last year.
Arrests and protest bans
Last July, environmental activist Esra Işık was sentenced to more than two years for “resisting” a public official over what Amnesty International described as a peaceful protest against an urgent expropriation order linked to the expansion of coal mining in south-western Türkiye. She is appealing the conviction.
Ahead of a summit of the NATO alliance in the capital Ankara in July, authorities put in place a 13-day blanket ban on demonstrations, citing “national security”, and arrested over 200 people. Human Rights Watch said the crackdown showed Türkiye’s “ruthless intolerance of freedom of speech and assembly”.
Earlier this month, Turkish police detained dozens of people as part of what rights groups described as the government’s widening crackdown on LGBTQ+ activists and venues.
Questioned by media as to how he would guarantee the right to protest at COP31, Kurum said earlier in September that his team would “try to meet” any request they receive from civil society and give them “a free space to express themselves”.
“Don’t worry, thinking you will not be able to voice your opinions or really share your thoughts,” he said in an attempt to reassure campaigners, adding that he had put former deputy environment minister Mehmet Birpinar in charge of liaising with civil society.
Civic space needed
Camilla Pollera, human rights and climate change campaigner at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), said meaningful participation at COP31 is fundamental to the legitimacy of climate action.
“At a climate summit, civil society participation necessarily includes being present, speaking out, scrutinising governments’ decisions and climate policies, and advocating for communities most vulnerable to climate change,” she added.
At last year’s COP30 summit, thousands of Indigenous people and climate activists peacefully marched through the Amazonian city of Belém in the first major demonstration outside the UN venue in four years. Smaller-scale demonstrations were largely confined to the “Blue Zone” at COP27 in Egypt, COP28 in the UAE and COP29 in Azerbaijan.
In two other separate incidents in Belém, members of the Munduruku tribe blocked access to the conference centre for hours, demanding an end to development projects in their ancestral land, and protesters stormed through the venue clashing with UN security officials.
The COP31 hosting agreement keeps some of the safeguards previously hailed by civil society groups. The government and the UN secretariat commit to upholding “the fundamental human rights” of all participants in the agreement’s preamble.
Under the deal, Türkiye also needs to ensure that security personnel follow “the highest ethical and professional standards and are expected to behave with integrity and respect”.
The post COP31 attendees told not to interfere in Türkiye’s “internal affairs” appeared first on Climate Home News.
COP31 attendees told not to interfere in Türkiye’s “internal affairs”
As rising seas submerge growing swathes of land, countries that lose territory should still keep their national boundaries, sovereign rights and UN membership, according to a political declaration adopted at the UN General Assembly in New York on Thursday.
The declaration, which was championed by climate-vulnerable small island states, affirms “the presumption in favour of continued statehood” in the face of sea level rise fuelled by climate change, and urges countries to work together to assist communities affected by encroaching oceans.
Speaking at a high-level UN meeting to address the existential threats posed by sea level rise, Cabo Verde’s Prime Minister Francisco Carvalho, one of the initiative’s co-facilitators along with Australia, said the adoption of the text by consensus sends “a message of hope”.
“This declaration has a very special meaning. For us, sea level rise is neither a distant threat nor a theoretical concern,” he said, adding that rising seas put at risk key infrastructure, water resources and economic growth in small island states.
In the Pacific, sea levels have risen at twice the global rate, dramatically increasing coastal flooding events from two to 20 a year in the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and from zero to 102 events per year in American Samoa, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
Surangel Whipps Jr., president of the Pacific island of Palau, said the summit in New York represents a “moment of international solidarity”, and highlighted that small island states will remain permanent members of the UN.
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Declaration recognises statehood
An advisory opinion by the world’s top maritime court, the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), first upheld in 2024 that countries do not have to shrink their maritime borders even if they lose land territory due to sea level rise. This was reiterated by the International Court of Justice in last year’s landmark ruling on the climate obligations of states.
The new declaration endorsed by all governments at the UN General Assembly stresses that sea level rise “is not a distant scenario but a real and lived experience for many”, and notes that international law must be implemented in global responses to rising seas.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres said the “milestone must now be translated into action”, adding that the declaration should encourage an “ongoing dialogue” at the “highest possible level” leading to practical outcomes. Pacific islands have proposed an international treaty on sea level rise that would provide more legal certainty.
“Those on the frontlines must be front and centre on every decision. We cannot allow countries and cultures to vanish beneath the waves,” he said. “The SOS has gone out. The world must answer.”
At regional summit, Pacific islands ask for COP31 support for clean energy and finance
Goodwin Friday, prime minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, said measures to protect vulnerable states will require adequate finance. “Investing in resilience now is more cost-effective than paying the far greater price for loss and damage later,” he added.
Championed by Australia’s COP31 co-presidency, Pacific islands have sought to put adaptation to sea level rise and ocean conservation at the top of the political agenda by inviting world leaders to attend the pre-COP31 summit co-hosted by Fiji and Tuvalu in October.
Tuvalu will also host the second global fossil fuel phase-out summit in April 2027, after around 60 governments met this year in Santa Marta, Colombia, to discuss ending their dependence on coal, oil and gas.
“Our coastlines, our reefs and our communities are living with the consequences of fossil fuel dependence every day, and our people have earned the right to help shape the way forward,” Lynda Tabuya, Fiji’s climate minister, said in a statement announcing details of the conference.
Ocean monitoring gets a boost in New York
Amid record-breaking marine heat and seas rising at unprecedented speed, governments in New York announced new commitments to protect the world’s ocean, as efforts to bolster marine ecosystems and coastal communities rise up the political agenda.
On Wednesday, the EU and Canada announced more funding for a new Europe-led ocean monitoring system called OceanEye, launched in the aftermath of a failed attempt by the Trump administration to dismantle the largest existing network of deep-sea observatories.
During an event at UN headquarters in New York, EU President Ursula von der Leyen and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced around $163 million in new funding for the initiative, with the EU pledging €92 million ($105m) on top of existing seed funding and Canada pledging C$82 million (US$58m) over five years.
According to an EU statement, while OceanEye will collaborate with the Global Ocean Observing System, that network “remains vulnerable to financial shortfalls and geopolitical disruptions”. A group of 30 countries from Europe, Africa and the Americas joined an international initiative in support of OceanEye, including large coastal nations like Brazil, Namibia and Mexico.
Von der Leyen said OceanEye “can make us the leading ocean data provider in a matter of years”, including by launching new satellites and installing new observatories in the deep ocean. “From outer space to the deepest ocean, our funding helps us keep watch beneath the waves,” she added.
Carney said the initiative would help protect Canada’s Arctic region with real-time monitoring operating year-round. “We can’t protect what we can’t see,” he said, also highlighting that Canada had expanded conservation of its ocean territory from 1% a decade ago to 15% now.
In New York, a group of 19 countries said they are either developing or implementing plans to sustainably manage all of their ocean territory, with 12 new nations joining the initiative. In a joint communiqué, they called on more countries to sign up ahead of COP31.
Warnings of El Niño-fuelled extreme heat
Scientists and world leaders have raised the alarm over this year’s record-breaking marine temperatures, which have persisted above historical peaks for more than 100 days as the naturally occurring El Niño phenomenon intensifies in the Pacific.
Extreme ocean heat could become a threat to coastal ecosystems and communities, experts fear. Water temperatures 1.5C above normal levels have also rapidly fuelled a strong hurricane in the Pacific in recent days.
Despite scientific calls for additional ocean conservation efforts, a report launched this week in New York warned that efforts to protect ocean ecosystems are lagging behind, with only 10% of the global ocean covered by conservation areas and just 3.5% designated as “effectively protected”.
The post Threatened by rising seas, small islands secure right to keep their statehood appeared first on Climate Home News.
Threatened by rising seas, small islands secure right to keep their statehood
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