Tuesday 12 November 2019

Steve Holliday: Oil and gas sector must play major role in tackling climate change

The oil and gas sector has to play a major role as part of the energy sector’s contribution in tackling climate change.

That’s the view of Steve Holliday, President of the Energy Institute, who spoke to ELN at the Energy Live Expo event in London last week, which attracted more than 450 people from across the industry.

The former National Grid boss believes while “enormous progress” has been made in the UK in a short space of time, with 50% of energy coming from zero carbon sources, the nation isn’t moving fast enough to tackling climate change.

He adds all of the energy industry must be involved, not just the clean energy companies and start-ups.

Mr Holliday said: “We need to get the oil and gas sector, they’ve got the technology, the financial resources, the science there, they’ve got to play a major part in this, so they’ve got to do more. We absolutely need to make sure we stop arguing about which technology is the right technology because we need all of them.

“So there’s a real sense, I think, coming out of this about we know an awful lot of the answers, it’s about how do we inject pace now and stop thinking about 2050, which is a long way off. Start thinking about what can we achieve by 2030.”

He believes that will require leadership from those who lead the organisations and businesses should not just rely on government setting the framework.

Mr Holliday added he was “irritated” by the government’s decision to scrap the zero carbon homes plan, which he believes is “an opportunity lost for the UK”.

Watch the full interview to find out more.