Recommendation 33

The emissions targets currently set under the North Sea Transition Deal are not stretching enough. The Climate Change Committee suggests that it is feasible and necessary for oil and gas production emissions to be reduced by 68% by 2030. We agree. The oil and gas industry has been aware of the contribution of its activities to man-made climate change since the 1990s, or earlier. A responsible industry should have been working to clean up its operations with far greater urgency than this timescale suggests. The Government needs to push the industry to go further and faster than its current approach. Challenging targets for the industry to undergo rapid decarbonisation must be introduced without delay. The fossil fuel industry should not be granted headroom in the UK’s carbon budgets that other hard to decarbonise sectors may need. We recommend that the North Sea Transition Deal be modified to include stronger targets and verification arrangements in line with the Government’s commitments under the Paris Agreement.