Catholic Church’s climate tsar brands Sunak ‘utterly reckless’ over North Sea licences
The senior bishop leading the Catholic Church on climate and business has branded Rishi Sunak “utterly reckless” for issuing new North Sea oil licences.
John Arnold, the Bishop of Salford, made the comments as business chiefs and world leaders including the Prime Minister attend the annual COP28 climate summit in Dubai.
Bishop Arnold said: “The North Sea licences stand in stark contrast to any understanding of our environmental needs. It seems to me utterly reckless that we’d be promoting fossil fuels at the very time when we should be radically reducing them.”
Mr Sunak introduced legislation in the King’s Speech last month to enable companies to bid yearly for oil and gas licences that allow drilling in the North Sea.
Historically the Catholic Church has itself invested heavily in funds linked to oil and gas, something it is now trying to shake off.
Bishop Arnold said: “We tried to begin with to negotiate with some fossil fuel companies and got various promises about how they were developing different forms of energy. But we just found that they weren’t meeting their promises. So many dioceses are now divesting from those investments.”
His comments mark a rare intervention by the Catholic Church in UK politics.
Bishop Arnold suggested the COP28 conference was deeply compromised by being held in the United Arab Emirates, one of the world’s ten largest oil producers, and the fact it is also attended by oil and gas lobbyists.
Experts have said this year’s Cop28 will have the biggest carbon footprint in the history of the annual climate summit because the UAE has invited record numbers of people.
At least 400,000 people are expected to travel to Dubai for the two-week event, organisers claimed, the biggest attendance on record.
Bishop Arnold was appointed national lead on climate and environment by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, headed by the Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Vincent Nichols.
Trained originally as a barrister he is leading the church’s Guardians of Creation strategy setting out how it might achieve net zero carbon emissions.
Bishop Arnold also criticised Labour’s track record on the environment, particularly regarding its decision to scale back plans to borrow £28bn a year to invest in green jobs and industry.
He said: “Keir Starmer doesn’t really mention the environment to any great degree. And the Labour Party has said that some of their previous environmental promises cannot be effectively put into practice.
“It seems to me that politicians are not waking up to the facts. They’re all too concerned about the next election, pleasing people in material ways and growing the economy – all of which fights against any real suggestion of good environmental measures.”
