Yet again, the Guardian runs an article with a simplistic headline based on a report by a propaganda outfit. This time it’s “Heat pumps and insulation would cut UK living costs more than new oilfields, study suggests” with, for good measure, a sub-title to the effect that “Warm homes plan would create 50,000 jobs, compared with about 1,100 for Rosebank oilfield, thinktank finds”. It’s another version of the numerous articles that have already appeared in the Guardian on the subject of the licensing (or not) of Jackdaw and Rosebank, which I criticised here.

There is so much wrong with the article that it’s difficult to know where to begin. But begin I must, so I’ll start by pointing out that the “thinktank” in question is E3G, a propaganda outfit which seeks to influence policy-makers with work of this kind, funded by “green” billionaires who seem to prefer to achieve their ends opaquely via outfits like E3G rather than by allowing the cut and thrust of the democratic process to determine outcomes. I wrote about them and the “green” money-go-round here. The Guardian always seems to describe E3G as a thinktank, though sometimes they call them a “green” thinktank, and in one article I have seen the Guardian refer to them as “the climate crisis thinktank E3G”. Suffice it to say, then, that even the Guardian recognises that E3G have skin in the game (lots of it) and the E3G website cheerfully acknowledges its political role:

Governments need to be willing and able to take drastic action to mitigate the worst impacts of climate change. Through analysis, diplomacy and coalition building, we work to build the political and diplomatic conditions underpinning delivery of global net zero by 2050, strengthen resilience in critical international systems, and help prepare for possible worst-case scenarios.

As trusted brokers, we work across the UNFCCC agenda, the G7 and G20, and many other fora to promote collaboration on the big issues of our time. Our network of experts around the globe help us to understand local perspectives, and bring stakeholders to the table. We also work with governments who rely on our diplomacy expertise of how to get things done in climate policymaking.

Trusted brokers? Trusted by whom? Their mates in the EU and in the UK government who supply them with funding?

Arguably it gets worse :

Climate diplomacy and geopolitics are central to E3G’s mission. The team collaborates with government departments, international organisations, and civil society networks in Europe, the UK, the US, China, Brazil, and beyond, fostering diplomatic engagement, understanding, and cooperation on critical climate issues.

The team coordinates diplomatic efforts for key multilateral processes, including the Conferences of the Parties (COPs), the G7, and the G20, while drawing on the expertise of thematic and regional experts across the organisation. These areas of expertise include energy, trade, finance, and adaptation and resilience.

In addition, the team plays a leading role in integrating climate considerations into the foreign policy strategies, frameworks, and approaches of various governments. This involves working closely with foreign, environment, development, and finance ministries – particularly in the EU, Germany, the UK, the US, and China.

The team is also at the forefront of thought leadership on geopolitics and security, where climate is increasingly shaping the global political landscape. It contributes to international climate regimes, climate cooperation institutions, and governance structures.

Which brings us, finally, to the “research” by E3G, which forms the basis of the Guardian article, but which I would argue isn’t new research at all. Rather, it’s an opinion piece written by Beth Walker, with a few interesting but partial links, which re-hashes the stale old arguments I criticised here in yet another attempt to influence the allegedly forthcoming decision by the UK government on whether to grant licences for the Rosebank oil and Jackdaw gas fields in the North Sea. It rather shoots itself in the foot by claiming that North Sea oil and gas are in terminal decline and can’t produce long term net gains for the UK Treasury, by reference to a graph that purports to support the long-term decline narrative. But the graph demonstrates returns to the Exchequer shooting up to £9 billion in 2022-23 at the start of the Russia-Ukraine War, with an OBR forecast as high as £4.1billion in 2025-26. A loss to the Excchequer of £400 million in a single year (2016-17). The article omits to mention that in that year the price of oil fell to lows of $30-$40 a barrel, and that in that year also the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, slashed Petroleum Revenue Tax to 0% and halved the Supplementary Charge from 20% to 10%. The result was that the UK government paid out net decommissioning refunds, but as the bounce-back in receipts in subsequent years demonstrates, this isn’t an argument for not allowing new fields to be commissioned. The graph is a sort of mirror image of the graph regarding Contracts for Difference (aka subsidies) for renewable energy companies and projects, which have resulted in huge costs to the Exchequer in every year save one in which a small amount of money for once went to the Exchequer. The irony is profound.

Beth Walker, by the way, has a biography page on the E3G website:

Beth Walker leads E3G’s work on UK fossil fuel phase out and international energy diplomacy. Her work focuses on how to support fossil fuel producing countries transition away from reliance on oil and gas revenue and towards a more resilient economy base.

Beth works with NGOs, government institutions, international organisations and academia to build strong diplomatic coalitions to drive a fast and just energy transition. Before joining E3G, Beth worked in the UK government leading strategy for international trade negotiations. Previously she spent almost 10 years building up a diplomatic coalition of NGOs, think tanks and government officials and journalists.

I have no doubt she is a very capable and intelligent lady, but as her biography demonstrates, she isn’t exactly disinterested regarding this subject.

In fairness, the blame for much of what is wrong with the Guardian article must be laid at the door of the Guardian itself. It says:

The government’s £15bn warm homes plan, currently under threat of cuts as ministers seek budget savings, would slash £1bn a year from household energy bills across the UK, concentrated on those on low incomes, according to research by the thinktank E3G.

But the link to the E3G research is to the piece to which I have supplied a link above, which concentrates entirely on the North Sea oil and gas numbers, and says not a word about the government’s warm homes plan. If E3G have made those claims, I think they must be in a different piece of work. In any event, the £15bn has to be paid for by the same people who it is claimed will save £1bn per annum, so it’s not a stunning return on investment. Quite apart from the dubious nature of those numbers, the home insulation plan has other problems, as I discussed here.

The Guardian article also (yet again) advocates “investing in heat pumps”, which is all very well, except that the British public don’t want them, not in anything other than extremely modest numbers, and even with the carrot of a £7,500 grant (ultimately in any event paid for by them wearing their taxpayers’ hat).

The final flaw in the Guardian article is the belief that creating lots of non-jobs at great expense is some sort of economic miracle and a panacea for the UK’s problems. Jit has dealt with the stupidity of this line of argument here.

I had to start somewhere, and I have to end somewhere. I think I’ll end with the final recommendation of the E3G piece:

Legislate to make the ban on new [oil and gas] licences permanent (i.e. via the forthcoming energy independence bill), to provide certainty to investors and make it harder for a new government to change course.

Just how undemocratic is that? Making anything permanent, undermining the ability of a future democratically elected Parliament to change course, is profoundly sinister. It needs to be called out. Democracy must prevail over behind the scenes string-pulling by unaccountable self-styled trusted brokers.

14 Comments

  1. Does the UK have North Sea natural gas resources or on land? I would think that the desire to reduce CO2 emissions these past two decades would have been accomplished far better and without injury to the economy, and creating energy poverty, if the UK had promoted fracking instead of offshoring industry, and burning woodchips in place of coal. There’s a lot of hypocrisy in the UK’s claims of CO2 emissions’ reductions. If the UK and Europe had promoted fracking and natural gas, we may well have had a safer world without Russian aggression, war casualties, and the UK’s and Europe’s ongoing substantial economic distress. So sad and unnecessory.

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  2. In contrast to the Guardian, here’s some common sense on energy policy and diesel prices from sensible-wing economist Liam Halligan in the Telegraph:

    “These delays [in consenting Rosebank and Jackdaw] are absurd. As North Sea oil and gas production has diminished over recent years, in part due to punitive taxation and the impact of climate change policies, energy imports have surged.

    Yet bringing in liquefied natural gas from the US, for instance, produces around five times more carbon emissions – once the gas is liquefied in the States, shipped across the Atlantic and then re-gasified here – than the emissions produced if we drilled and used our own natural gas.

    The tax implications of our self-imposed restrictions on domestic oil and gas production are also disastrous. Back in 2022, the North Sea generated almost £10bn in tax revenue. As investment has been taxed and regulated out of existing, falling production means such revenues are on course to drop almost to zero by the end of this parliament.

    And then, decommissioning costs kick in, with a moribund North Sea actually costing the Treasury money.

    Even more crazy is the state of our refining fleet – 18-strong as recently as the 1980s, and now down to just four. This is what’s driving crazy diesel prices, every bit as much as distant wars.

    Last week I asked a senior energy industry insider what share of the blame for the closure of Britain’s refining capacity was due to our uniquely stringent net zero policies. He replied: ‘One hundred percent’.”

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  3. A point I should perhaps have made in my post is the huge irony in the Guardian article dismissing claims of job creation that would follow the granting of North Sea drilling licences, due to the fact that “The jobs would be concentrated in the North Sea and in two companies, one of them – Equinor – an overseas investor.“

    It may have passed the Guardian by, but Equinor is a major investor in UK renewables, and many – if not most – renewables energy projects in the UK are developed and/or owned by foreign investors. I have never noticed that being a problem when renewables enthusiasts, including the Guardian, trumpet their job creation potential.

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  4. Quote – “Climate diplomacy and geopolitics are central to E3G’s mission. The team collaborates with government departments, international organisations, and civil society networks in Europe, the UK, the US, China, Brazil, and beyond, fostering diplomatic engagement, understanding, and cooperation on critical climate issues.”

    Well how’s E3G influencing China’s Belt and Road Initiative, not a lot despite the crowing blurb. Another “thinktank” that has delusions of grandeur. Suppose, to keep the donations flowing they they have to exaggerate/tell white lie’s.

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  5. This was being widely trailed yesterday evening:

    “UK government approves Jackdaw gas field and says production will start this month”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cw8rzgvlmjznt

    Balanced reporting from Simon Jack:

    Jackdaw will make up around 6% of the UK’s total gas production but because we currently import around 60% of our gas, it will contribute less than 3% of the UK’s total gas needs.

    It will do little, if anything, to affect prices as they are set internationally.

    Nevertheless, it will make the UK marginally less dependent on imports, will support dozens of direct jobs and potentially hundreds in the wider North Sea infrastructure and perhaps most importantly, with North Sea profits taxed at 78%, it will mean more tax revenue than if the gas was imported from Norway or the US.

    What one would expect from certain quarters:

    Zack Polanski, Green Party leader, says the decision is “climate vandalism”.

    “Today’s decision by Labour is a betrayal of all of our futures, Labour has abandoned all credibility in the fight against climate change.

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  6. Now that the decision has been made, the Guardian reporting is miraculously and suddenly more balanced, after months of giving space to anyone and everyone who was campaigning against it:

    “What does the UK’s approval of the Jackdaw gasfield mean?

    Decision has implications for household energy bills, the UK economy and the climate crisis”

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/oct/20/what-does-the-approval-of-the-jackdaw-gasfield-mean

    Gas from Jackdaw could release between 23.6m and 35.8m tonnes of CO2 equivalent over its 11-year operational lifespan, but the carbon impact of new North Sea fields is “not clear cut”. That’s the view of the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), which advises the government on meeting its legally binding climate targets.

    There are two sorts of emission to consider: firstly the “scope 1 and 2” kind, created from getting fossil fuels out of the ground and transporting them to users. These are relatively low in the British North Sea and make up about 3% of the UK’s total. In fact, the CCC has said there might be “emissions advantages” to the switch because scope 1 and 2 emissions from UK gas are by some estimates four times lower than from US and Gulf fossil gas imports.

    The second, far bigger impact is from the “scope 3” emissions created from burning the fossil fuel. Although Jackdaw’s gas would release CO2 when used in homes, businesses, factories and power plants, there is no evidence it would lead to higher overall gas consumption.

    As Andy Burnham, the prime minister, said in July: “The question isn’t whether Britain will still be using oil and gas, the question is where does it come from.” A better way to reduce UK emissions would be to replace gas boilers and fossil fuel vehicles with electric alternatives powered by low-carbon sources….

    …What about the impact on global emissions?

    Here too, the answer is unclear. Some academics have suggested that more UK oil and gas would push up fossil fuel production globally unless output fell elsewhere….

    …a global oversupply of fossil fuels does not necessarily lead to greater emissions. In 2025, China’s crude oil imports hit a record 11m barrels a day but its emissions continued to fall because it was building its crude stocks to a record high of 1.4bn barrels.

    In short, emissions are largely due to energy consumption, not energy production. So if consumption continues to decline, emissions will fall regardless of the amount of fossil fuels made available in the global market….

    …The North Sea is an ageing hydrocarbon basin in terminal decline but supporting new projects still offers economic benefits, including higher tax revenues from oil and gas companies, income tax from well-paid workers and job creation within the industry and its supply chain.

    Offshore Energies UK, an industry body, has promised the government that approving both Jackdaw and Rosebank could provide £1.4bn in tax revenues by 2029, rising to £3.8bn by 2034. It has also claimed the fields could support a peak of more than 3,500 jobs during the construction phase and 880 jobs with an average salary of £85,850 over the lifetime of the fields….

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  7. If only all Guardian journalists had as much sense as Nils Pratley:

    “Jackdaw approval is a step towards a grownup North Sea policy

    Government decision is about how much oil and gas is sensible for UK to produce on the way to net zero”

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/nils-pratley-on-finance/2026/oct/21/jackdaw-approval-step-towards-grownup-north-sea-policy

    …several awkward energy facts. First, oil and gas provided 75% of the UK’s energy in 2025, government data shows. Second, even with the rollout of domestic renewables for generating electricity, about 43% of overall energy was imported last year.

    Third, all credible paths to net zero emissions by 2050 involve using a lot of oil and gas on the way because we’re still in the foothills of electrification. Fewer than 2% of UK households have heat pumps, according to the lobby group Electrify Britain.While sales of EVs are accelerating, nearly 95% of vehicles on the road run on petrol and diesel. Meanwhile, hydrogen and biomethane have barely taken off as alternatives to gas for those industrial processes that require higher temperatures than electricity can achieve – tricky for a government pursuing “reindustrialisation”.Fourth – and this one must alarm Downing Street – the global energy market has simply become less reliable. The strait of Hormuz can close overnight. The US president can threaten to ban diesel exports. Russian ships prowl the North Sea. Even the nice Norwegians, with an eye on their own energy consumers, scrapped a planned electricity cable to Scotland in 2023….

    …All the arguments from pragmatism were in the field’s favour. As this column has said in the past, less North Sea gas would inevitably mean more imported liquefied natural gas, with the extra carbon emissions created by chilling the fuel to -160C for shipment and then “regasifying” it at the other end….

    …Such cargos were 20% of UK gas imports last year, mostly from the US. It already feels absurd that the 24m UK households with a gas boiler burn any gas at all from the shale fields of Texas and Pennsylvania. Why increase the exposure if lower-polluting supplies are available off Aberdeen?More UK North Sea gas production won’t lower the price for consumers much, if at all. But that was never the argument. It was always about tax receipts, jobs, the national balance of payments, relative emissions and the security that comes with having domestic volumes piped straight into the national gas network.Jackdaw is not a gamechanger – it will be 6% of UK North Sea gas production at peak – but it’s definitely worth having while the UK is still using gas, which will be at least as long as the field’s 11-year life. The next question is whether other “tie-back” gasfields in already-explored areas, such as Tornado, west of the Shetlands, will follow. The line in the government’s announcement about “asking the regulator to consider urgent cases that could benefit from similar measures now” suggests so….

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  8. Mark – thanks for the link. I agree with your praise for Nils Pratley, a sane voice giving a balanced view. Found this quote relevant to other topics we have discussed –

    “Meanwhile, the “it’s all exported” objection to Rosebank misses the fact that the UK oil industry operates within a European network. If the UK had more than four refineries (compared with nine at the turn of the century), a chunk of Rosebank’s output might be processed at home. As it is, some – perhaps the majority – will come back to the UK as petrol, diesel and jet fuel once it’s been refined in Rotterdam or elsewhere in north-west Europe.”

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  10. Things could yet become very interesting regarding the decision over the Rosebank licence. It seems that economic reality is beginning to bite:

    “Cabinet split emerges over controversial Rosebank oilfield decision

    Chancellor is in favour of North Sea project, but energy secretary has said she is leaning towards rejecting it”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/oct/25/cabinet-split-emerges-over-controversial-rosebank-oilfield-decision

    “Political battle intensifies within Labour over Rosebank oil field”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c6zxj7dvxr5yo

    …Scottish Labour leader Michael Marra is wading into the political battle which is intensifying over the Rosebank oil field.

    He is making a direct appeal to Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh to approve the plans to allow production to begin in the North Atlantic…..

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  11. Are the climate campaigners being softened up by the Government leaking to its pals at the Guardian?

    “Rosebank oilfield would not breach UK emission targets, say government insiders

    Emissions from exported oil would not count against carbon budget, insiders say – reasoning likely to draw dismay from climate campaigners”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/oct/27/rosebank-oilfield-north-sea-uk-emissions-targets-insiders

    The giant Rosebank oilfield can be approved without breaching the UK’s emission targets, according to government insiders, in a boost to those in the cabinet who are pushing for it to be given the go-ahead.

    The Guardian revealed last week that Miatta Fahnbulleh, the energy secretary, was leaning towards rejecting the project, but her position has put her at loggerheads with cabinet colleagues, including the chancellor, John Healey, who are lobbying for an approval.

    Government insiders have told the Guardian the project can be approved on a strict reading of Britain’s climate obligations, in part because once the oil is exported, the emissions from burning it no longer count against domestic targets. “Miatta has more latitude than you might think,” said one….

    Liked by 1 person

  12. The UK Labour government has a huge problem in the form of its backbenchers. On this, and on other issues, they may lose Burnham the next general election:

    “Angry Labour MPs urge leadership not to overrule energy secretary on Rosebank

    Exclusive: Backbenchers voice alarm over ‘intolerable position’ faced by Miatta Fahnbulleh over oilfield decision”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/oct/29/labour-mps-rosebank-oilfield-decision-miatta-fahnbulleh-john-healey

    Furious Labour MPs have been lobbying the prime minister and chancellor not to overrule the energy secretary should she decide to block the Rosebank oilfield.

    MPs say they are alarmed at the cabinet splits that have emerged over the issue after sources told the Guardian that Miatta Fahnbulleh was minded to refuse environmental permission for the field.

    Sources close to the chancellor, John Healey, have since made it clear he is in favour of the scheme, while some in government believe the prime minister, Andy Burnham, also wants it to go ahead.

    Backbenchers worried about the environmental impact of the project are now urging their whips and Downing Street not to allow other ministers to intervene in Fahnbulleh’s decision.

    Catherine Fookes, a Labour member of the energy select committee, said: “Approving Rosebank will blow a hole in our green credentials. A group of us is making it clear to leadership that this should be Miatta’s decision and I hope they listen.

    “Labour MPs are really, really concerned about it – it would go against the thrust of our manifesto.”

    Another MP said: “If Healey pushes through Rosebank, there will be blood. It’s economically shortsighted as well as politically explosive – they aren’t listening at all to the discomfort on the backbenches.”….

    Liked by 1 person

  13. Well, we got the government we deserved, and thankfully the members of the Energy Select Committee know their onions.

    As to the answer, I don’t know. Reduce the pay, and enforce a minimum age, and a requirement to pass a maths, economics and history paper…?

    And I don’t think they are “furious” at all.

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