Climate catastrophe is on our doorstep – yet Labour’s impending approval of further drilling will bring more pain for negligible gains
Pinch yourself, it’s happening again. Here is a Labour government spending a vast amount of political capital to earn tiny material gains while risking huge political losses. It occurred repeatedly under Keir Starmer, and now – with the impending decision to approve further gas and oil drilling in the North Sea – it is happening under Andy Burnham. You rack your brains to explain it, but no rational explanation comes.
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the two greatest threats to the global economy might now be climate breakdown, which, as a wide range of economists and eminent organisations forecast, threatens comprehensive economic collapse, and the AI bubble, which the governor of the Bank of England warns could burst with dire consequences. Then people will really be struggling. Yet our government and others cheerfully accelerate both forces – claiming, as ever, that the industries driving them will unleash “growth”. Growth in home repossessions, perhaps.
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The sense in almost every nation is of governments failing to take seriously the most serious of issues, while spending immense political resources on topics that scarcely affect our welfare (such as a few thousand people crossing the Channel in small boats). Or even – as is the case with North Sea oil and gas – using their scarce political capital to make things worse for everyone, including themselves.
Our government is not a doomsday cult like the Trump government, creepily fascinated by the “end times”, as the US vice-president seems to be. But in terms of outcome, is there much difference?
See the original article at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/sep/10/andy-burnham-north-sea-oil-plans-labour-climate-drilling-trump-reform
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