UK newspapers have already published 63 editorials this year calling for more oil and gas extraction in the North Sea, according to Carbon Brief analysis.
The national outlets, including the Sun, the Daily Telegraph and the Times, argue that the nation “needs” more North Sea drilling to provide “home-sourced oil and gas” amid a “full-blown energy crisis”.
These newspapers seek to blame energy secretary Ed Miliband’s “net-zero crusade” for curbing UK fossil-fuel production – despite supplies dwindling for decades before he took the role.
The push for North Sea drilling in newspaper editorials – considered a publication’s formal “voice” – is part of a wider rejection of net-zero policies by the UK’s right-leaning press.
Figures ranging from ex-Labour prime minister Tony Blair to hard-right Reform UK leader Nigel Farage have repeated similar arguments that more drilling will “boost” the UK economy.
Even US president Donald Trump has weighed in, attributing, in part, the resignation of Keir Starmer as UK prime minister to him “fail[ing] badly” on North Sea oil.
Despite these claims, experts say trying to extract the last barrels of domestic oil and gas would have no impact on people’s energy bills and very little effect on energy security.
More drilling
North Sea oil and gas production is a highly politically charged issue in the UK, especially under the current Labour government.
When Labour won the general election in 2024, the new government committed to a “phased and responsible” transition away from fossil-fuel extraction in the North Sea.
As part of this pledge, it ruled out issuing new exploration licences for oil and gas. Since then, the government has allowed some “tiebacks”, where new drilling is undertaken close to existing sites.
Roughly 90% of the fossil fuels that are likely to be extracted in the North Sea have already been burned. North Sea oil and gas extraction was, therefore, already on a clear downward trajectory long before Labour came to power, having dropped 75% between 2000 and 2024.
Nevertheless, many newspapers have relentlessly called for more oil and gas production, framing the Labour policy as “self-destructive” and compromised by “green ideology”.
This has ramped up significantly in 2026. Just six months into the year, newspapers have already published 63 pro-North Sea editorials, according to analysis by Carbon Brief. This is more than double the number published in 2025, as shown in the figure below.
Right-leaning newspapers have led this campaign, with the Sun alone publishing 25 editorials, while the Daily Telegraph and the Times have published 10 each.
‘Full-blown energy crisis’
The biggest surge in pro-North Sea drilling editorials came in March, as the Iran war escalated and a global energy crisis began to take shape. Newspapers published 24 such editorials that month, despite the crisis largely arising from the world’s reliance on fossil fuels.
The Daily Express said the UK needed more “home-sourced oil and gas” and the Daily Mail highlighted the “perverse limit on domestic fossil-fuel production”.
As the weeks progressed, the Sun lamented price rises and potential fuel shortages, proposing North Sea drilling as a solution to the “full-blown energy crisis”.
Yet, UK oil and gas is sold by private companies on the open market at international rates. This means UK consumers have no particular right to the fuels or control over the prices they are bought for.
The Sun claimed – without evidence – that if the North Sea had been prioritised, the UK “might just have the cheapest electricity in the world”. It also said net-zero “forces us to spend billions” on imports.
In fact, the UK’s high energy prices are primarily the result of its reliance on gas to generate electricity.
The nation is reliant on oil and gas imports, in part, because the North Sea is a “mature basin” that saw its output collapse long before the UK even had a net-zero target.
Renewables and low-carbon technologies – often dismissed by the same newspapers – are expected to have a far greater impact on cutting imports than new drilling ever could.
Miliband’s ‘crusade’
Much of the criticism by these newspapers of Labour’s North Sea stance is tied to their highly personal criticism of Miliband. Of the 63 editorials arguing for more drilling, nearly three-quarters also attacked him as a “net-zero zealot” on a “green crusade”.
The Times said the energy and net-zero secretary was pursuing a “masochistic policy” by not expanding North Sea drilling and that he had “cloaked his zealotry in spurious rationality”.
This all fits with a broader trend that has seen right-leaning newspapers launch frequent, personal attacks on Miliband.
In the roughly two years since Labour won the election, giving the government a clear mandate for its net-zero policies, there have been around 230 editorials criticising Miliband.
(These have redoubled in recent days, amid rumours that he may be made chancellor under Andy Burnham, if the new Makerfield MP becomes the next prime minister, as is widely expected.)
Such attacks have increasingly spilled over into politics. Conservative shadow energy secretary Claire Coutinho has accused Miliband of “fanaticism” and Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has even likened him to a “Nigerian military dictator”.
The newspapers have also interpreted any support for North Sea drilling as a rebuke of Miliband. Both the Sun and the Daily Telegraph welcomed an essay by Blair, in which he argued that “we must…use what is left of our North Sea oil and gas resources”.
The Sun heralded Blair as Labour’s “most successful election winner” and said he “nailed the chief mistakes” of the current government, including:
“Allowing Ed Miliband free rein on net-zero – especially the banning of North Sea drilling.”
Several of the newspapers have also thrown their support behind the Conservative party, as it frames itself as an anti-net-zero, pro-fossil fuel alternative to Labour.
The Daily Mail described Badenoch’s proposal to drill more in the North Sea as a “concrete plan”, while the Sun – in an echo of Trump’s slogan – has simply urged her to “drill, Kemi, drill”.
The post Analysis: UK newspapers have already printed 63 editorials in 2026 backing North Sea drilling appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Analysis: UK newspapers have already printed 63 editorials in 2026 backing North Sea drilling
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Three countries have been named by the Paris Agreement’s compliance committee for failing to submit a nationally determined contribution (NDC) and repeatedly snubbing offers of help with their climate plans.
After months of internal debate over whether to identify serial non-responders, the Paris Agreement’s Implementation and Compliance Committee (PAICC) named the three countries which have failed to engage with it over their NDCs on Friday.
It named Democratic Republic of Congo, Senegal and North Korea in a footnote of its annual report, adding that it decided to name them “with a view to facilitating engagement”, adding that representatives of the three nations had been invited to its meeting in early 2027 “with the purpose of identifying any challenges and constraints”.
“The Committee noted the importance of Parties engaging with the Committee in a timely manner, while noting that some delays may be due to the national capabilities and circumstances of the Parties”, the report said.
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In July, PAICC said 12 countries had ignored its repeated attempts to discuss why they had not published an NDC as required every five years under the 2015 Paris accord.
Members of the committee had been divided over whether to name them, but at a September meeting decided to do so in their annual report to the annual climate COP summit.
By the time the report was published on Friday, only Congo, Senegal and North Korea “had not communicated an NDC or submitted a [Biennial Transparency Report] and had not yet responded to any of the Committee’s notifications, despite several reminders issued by the Committee in this regard”.
Rainforest and renewable energy ambitions
The silence from Congo and Senegal is notable because the former is home to much of the Congo Basin rainforest while the latter has sought billions of dollars in climate finance to support its renewable energy ambitions.
After Brazil, Congo has more rainforest than any country in the world. This forest, and the country’s peatlands, absorb huge amounts of greenhouse gas but are fast being lost to expanding farmland, charcoal production, logging and mining.
Senegal signed a Just Energy Transition Partnership with Canada and wealthy European nations in 2023, to help it meet its renewable energy targets under the-then government of Macky Sall. It was chair of the Least Developed Countries group between January 2022 and December 2023.
Tejas Rao, who is researching the PAICC as part of a doctoral thesis at Cambridge University, said the governments of the three countries should engage with the committee.
“Engagement costs these governments very little and the committee has shown it will listen,” he said.
“Silence leaves the committee with no basis to help, and it leaves the [governments] exposed to the narrative that they are simply disengaged,” he told Climate Home News.
Paris Agreement requirement
The 2015 Paris Agreement requires all parties to publish an NDC every five years outlining their emissions reduction targets, with each plan meant to be more ambitious than the country’s last NDC.
The latest set – the third round of plans, with new targets for 2035 – was due in February 2025. While most countries missed this deadline, all but around 30 – mostly small emitters but including Egypt, Vietnam and Argentina – have now submitted them.
Over the year, the PAICC – which is made up of government climate officials from developed and developing countries – has been communicating with governments that have not submitted NDCs and trying to overcome barriers to them doing so.
Some nations have cited exceptional circumstances as the reason for not submitting an NDC, a process that requires a significant amount of work in tracking emissions and consulting on how to curb them across the economy. For example, a letter from a Sudanese official to the PAICC, seen by Climate Home News, said that the country’s civil war had led to the suspension of its NDC preparation.
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The US and Iran are not signed up to the Paris Agreement and so do not have active NDCs, nor does Taiwan, which is not a UN member state.
Rao said that because the PAICC is “facilitative and non-punitive”, naming the countries “is meant to open a door, not close one – the invited consultation is the point”.
“In recent months, governments that explained their constraints, whether capacity, finance or domestic process, have been met with follow-up and support rather than sanction, and the number of silent governments has fallen sharply,” Rao said.
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Paris Agreement committee names three countries snubbing it over NDCs