Johnson’s energy security strategy won’t bring down our eye-watering heating bills

theguardian.com:

At last, the energy security strategy has been published, after weeks of hedging, briefing and delays. The original aims of the strategy, which was initially promised on 7 March, were worthy: to confront rocketing energy bills and transition away from Russian fossil fuels after the invasion of Ukraine.

There was also hope in the climate world that the strategy would go further and faster in the transition to a zero-carbon economy. The cost of renewables has tumbled, and the UK’s leaky housing stock is crying out for retrofitting. This was an opportunity for an urgent response both to the climate and cost of living crises.

But for something that was motivated by a war and an energy crisis, the headline policies of the resulting document strikingly fail to address either. One of the cornerstone issues is timescale: the strategy is big on infrastructure commitments such as new nuclear power plants and offshore wind farms, which won’t be fully operational for years, if not decades. Radical reform of the planning system to allow more onshore wind, one of the quickest and cheapest short-term salves to high energy bills, is absent. In its place there is a milquetoast commitment to “consulting on developing partnerships for a limited number of supportive communities”.

Months after Cop26, the strategy has committed to licensing and drilling for oil and gas in the North Sea. Its climate ambitions are therefore deeply questionable. The majority of this oil is tagged for export; as Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, pointed out, domestic production won’t address energy bills but will only help fossil fuel executives get richer. Without nationalisation, new oil and gas will be sold at the market rate.

Shell made a profit of $19.3bn