Oil wells in the UK: The global energy dynamics

This has been an interesting week in the global energy space. The UK government gave the green light for the exploitation of the Rosebank oil field the UK’s largest untapped oil field. The field is in the North Sea.

Yes, in the middle of the deep blue sea. To his credit, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has decided that while he will still pursue climate change policies, he must do so in an economically sustainable manner.

The UK is not the only place in the West where the debate about energy policy is ragging. In the United States, a trade union called UAW (United Auto Workers) launched an unprecedented strike against auto makers Ford, General Motors and Stellantis. At the heart of their complaint is the decision of the US government to mandate the manufacture of electric vehicles.

The US government is providing billions to subsidise the manufacture of electric cars as part of its climate strategy. The unions see this as a threat to jobs because electric vehicles have less parts than the combustion engine. 

Former US president Donald Trump jumped on this issue and went to visit the striking workers.

Trump told them the US transition to electric vehicles poses an existential threat to their future, calling it a “government assassination of your jobs and your industry,” and accusing the Joe Biden administration of selling workers out to “environmental extremists” and the “radical left”.

In the US republican presidential debate, Mike Pence accused president Biden of “declaring a war on energy”.

The Biden administration has not responded to these claims by arguing the merits of “phasing out fossil fuels”. Rather they correctly pointing out that the US produces more oil under Biden than it did at any other time in history. 

This is true. America produces 12.9 to 13 million barrels a day under Biden. Saudi Arabia is now the second largest producer producing 10 million barrels.

The US consumes 20 million barrels a day, a fifth of total global consumption. It also consumes 80 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day. It is no wonder, with all that energy consumed America is the richest country in the history of humanity.

Why are the energy debates in US and UK important to us? This is because the climate change consensus is finally going to be tested democratically in the West.

Will Western voters going through the worst cost of living crisis in living memory see the need for example to pay climate reparations to Africa? It would take a gigantic amount of naivety to expect such a thing.

As this debate was happening in the West, the International Energy Agency released a report about the path we need to take to get to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

The report stated that “Energy sector CO2 emissions remain worryingly high, reaching a new record of 37 gigatonnes (Gt) in 2022.

Instead of starting to fall as envisaged in the 2021 report, demand for fossil fuels has increased – spurred by the energy crisis of 2022 after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – and so have investments in supply.

Progress on energy access has stalled while millions of people still lack access to electricity and clean cooking, notably in sub-Saharan Africa.”

Nearly one billion people in Africa still cook with dirty and dangerous fuels that have severe negative consequences for health and livelihoods.

Gas produced from our African oil fields can help overcome or at least partly address this challenge. While the report had radical solutions it also brought to the fore the deep injustice around the so-called climate financing.

The truth is climate finance is heading entirely in one direction. Western leaders promised Africa $100b dollars a year. It will not come.

We must nonetheless not abandon our target of making the world a cleaner, safer place or playing a role in this.

But we must understand that a cleaner world is one in which Africans have electricity and clean cooking options too.

As we keep saying in these pages, poverty must never be a method of environmental conservation.

The writer is an advocate and partner at Kampala Associated Advocates 
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