A response to the King's Speech to Parliament
15 November 2023
Steve Hucklesby, a Policy Adviser with the Methodist Church, offers this short comment on The King’s Speech and climate change.
The Prime Minister stated that he would like to encourage further applications for licencing of oil and gas extraction but our government must do more to show how we will urgently phase out oil and gas production and define the timescale. We must ensure that this is consistent with the UK’s contribution to tackle the climate crisis.
The United Nations Environment Programme has just reported that major producers currently plan by 2030 to extract twice the volumes that would be consistent with keeping below 1.5 degrees of warming. Last month over 400 Christian leaders called on the Prime Minister to cancel the huge Rosebank oil and gas field.