GWPF Welcomes Government Plan To Develop UK Shale

The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF) wishes the new government every success and has welcomed its plan to develop UK shale gas.

“We welcome the government's determination to develop shale gas as a key plank of their 'Northern Powerhouse' agenda. The development of shale gas could in time create a whole new energy industry that would generate billions of much needed revenue,” said Lord Lawson, the GWPF chairman.

Although the Government is committed to shale gas exploration, there are still a number of hurdles, in particular excessive delays in planning permission by local councils which the government will need to address.

The Chancellor George Osborne has pledged that the government would cut CO2 emissions "no slower but also no faster than our fellow countries in Europe.”

In the absence of a legally binding EU agreement on post-2020 climate targets, Britain’s unilateral CO2 targets under the 2008 Climate Change Act would become unsustainable. The Global Warming Policy Forum therefore calls on the government to suspend setting any new unilateral UK decarbonisation targets and to hold a fundamental review of UK climate and energy policy in the light of the outcome of the Paris UN climate summit.

“The Government should delay any decision about new unilateral CO2 targets until such time that all other major nations have signed up to similar legally binding targets,” said Dr Benny Peiser, the director of the GWPF.