A pragmatic energy transition requires maintaining domestic oil and gas production as a strategic bridge to a renewable future, in order to prevent higher emissions from foreign imports while securing national energy sovereignty, says Callum Anderson

“Drill, baby, drill” is not something you’d expect a ‘climate activist’ to say. You probably wouldn’t hear it from Just Stop Oil. But it is something I think you’ll hear more and more from serious climate commentators.

We need to champion homegrown, sovereign and traditional energy. Not just for price-stability, but also as part of a grown-up energy mix.

The conversation around Rosebank and the future of North Sea oil in the UK, for example, has become dangerously binary: shut it all down, or stall climate progress. But this framing obscures the nuanced reality of energy transition and risks both climate integrity and national resilience.

From a climate perspective, maintaining a measured level of domestic North Sea production is more responsible than shifting demand offshore to jurisdictions with looser environmental standards and higher emissions per barrel.

From a climate perspective, maintaining a measured level of domestic North Sea production is more responsible than shifting demand offshore to jurisdictions with looser environmental standards and higher emissions per barrel.

The same could be said for fracking and Gulf of Mexico oil production in the US.

Every barrel we refuse to produce here at home is likely replaced with one produced under far worse ecological oversight – undermining the very emissions gains we claim to pursue.

Climate gains,........

© City A.M.