Rebuilding the North Sea in the public interest

Right now, the UK Government is consulting on widespread policy changes that will determine the future of the North Sea. Today marks the last day of the consultation.

This article summarises what is required to ensure that workers, communities and the wider public benefit from the North Sea’s transition from an ageing oil and gas basin to a thriving renewable energy powerhouse. The full briefing can be downloaded here.  

While many of the government’s proposed changes are welcome, to ensure they provide the future jobs, prosperity and energy we need, while helping to tackle the climate crisis, it must seize this moment to introduce a robust plan for transitioning the North Sea focused on:

• Public investment in domestic manufacturing ensuring renewable energy is made in the UK 
• Support for workers and communities to benefit from high-quality, renewable energy jobs
• Ending new oil and gas to keep 1.5 °C within reach

‍Increase public investment to ensure renewable energy is made in the UK ‍

The North Sea transition plan must focus on creating a clean energy industry and high-quality jobs for Scotland and the UK’s energy workforce. 

The UK’s 50 wind farms currently account for over a fifth of global offshore wind capacity, but successive governments have failed to use this opportunity to establish domestic offshore wind manufacturing. Currently, a typical North Sea turbine contains more than three times as much material content from abroad as it does from UK manufacturers. When most job opportunities in offshore wind are in manufacturing, rather than operations or maintenance, this matters. 

Current levels of public investment, however, are insufficient to grasp this opportunity. To ensure the North Sea’s transition is in the public interest, government needs to increase public investment – through GB Energy, the National Wealth Fund, and the Clean Industry Bonus – to grow UK offshore wind manufacturing, and upgrade UK ports to enable this growth. It also needs to target this public investment at regions most affected by the transition, and mandate that these public funds deliver for workers and communities.

‍Support for workers and communities to benefit from high-quality, renewable energy jobs

As well as the UK government using public investment to grow the number of domestic renewable energy jobs, its transition plan must also support the UK’s energy workforce move into those roles, especially offshore oil and gas workers. The need for workforce transition planning is now urgent. The North Sea basin is in geological decline and jobs supported by the oil and gas sector have more than halved in the past decade, and will continue to fall as production declines. Wages in renewables lag behind those in fossil fuels and the current lack of support for workers to transition leaves them, for example, facing costly duplication of qualifications, running to thousands of pounds, if they wish to work in offshore wind.

The government must now work with the Scottish Government to introduce a package of measures to support oil and gas workers into renewable energy jobs, as well as taking steps to improve the quality of jobs in the renewables  industry.  Workers must be given a central role in creating and delivering the transition plan, alongside unions, supply chains firms and community representatives, to ensure it fully meets their needs – and the oil and gas industry’s role needs to be diminished. Measures need to be introduced to ensure more of the wealth from renewable energy flows to local communities through, for example, community benefit funds. 

End new oil and gas to keep 1.5 °C within reach

A credible North Sea transition plan must phase out UK oil and gas production to align with climate science and the UK and Scotland’s climate commitments. New oil and gas production is incompatible with limiting global heating to 1.5°C. There is now significant scientific evidence that the emissions from burning the reserves in existing oil and gas fields globally would push us past this limit. Even with the North Sea in decline, potential new projects – i.e. licensed but as yet undeveloped fields – if allowed to go into production, would release more CO2 than would be produced running 15 coal-fired power stations from now until 2050. 

To follow through on its commitment to align future UK oil and gas production with climate science and the target of limiting global warming to 1.5 °C, the UK government must not just deliver its commitment to end new oil and gas licensing in legislation, but also end the approval of new UK oil and gas projects, including huge new oil-for-export projects like Rosebank. It also needs to scrap the current policy of ‘maximising economic recovery’, which is the principal objective of the oil and gas regulator and reform the North Sea Transition Authority to manage the sector’s decline in the public interest. 

Please click here to download the full PDF briefing 

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