1. Outline
This is a letter from Nigel Topping CMG, Chair of the Committee, to Ed Miliband MP, Secretary of State for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ).
The Climate Change Committee (CCC) is required by the Infrastructure Act 2015 to provide advice to the UK Government on the likely impact of onshore petroleum extraction in England on the ability to meet UK-wide carbon budgets and Net Zero. This advice is due every five years.
This letter sets out the Committee’s latest advice.
Since our previous advice, the Government has committed to a ban on new onshore oil and gas licences. The existing moratorium on hydraulic fracturing (shale gas fracking) also remains in place. As a result, we have focused this advice on practically extractable production from the existing conventional onshore oil and gas fields in England.
2. Key messages
- Onshore oil and gas production in England remains small relative to total UK onshore and offshore production, and relative to UK demand.
- Onshore production in England accounted for 0.6% of UK gas production and 4% of UK oil production in 2024.
- Onshore gas production in England was equivalent to 0.3% of UK gas demand and onshore oil production equivalent to 2% of UK oil demand in 2024.
- Associated production emissions remain a small contributor to carbon budgets and Net Zero. The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, working with the relevant regulatory authorities, should ensure appropriate policy to facilitate the reduction of production emissions associated with UK oil and gas fields consistent with carbon budgets and Net Zero.
- Emissions associated with the consumption and combustion of oil and gas form a significant part of the CCC’s carbon budgets. The Committee gave detailed advice on reducing emissions from fossil fuel consumption across the energy system in our Seventh Carbon Budget advice.
- The CCC’s Seventh Carbon Budget Balanced Pathway projects a fall in the direct emissions associated with total UK oil and gas combustion from 303 MtCO₂e in 2025 to 141 MtCO₂e in 2035 and 29 MtCO₂e in 2050.
- Any combustion of oil and gas, regardless of source, would need to remain in line with this (or be offset by reductions in other sources of emissions or by additional greenhouse gas removals) if carbon budgets and Net Zero are to be met.
