Climate minister Graham Stuart says that UK fracking and oil drilling are good for the environment and that issuing more than 100 licences for North Sea drilling is a green strategy. According to Liz Truss's new climate minister, fracking and drilling for additional oil and gas in the North Sea are environmentally friendly and beneficial. Graham Stuart argued that granting more than 100 licences to businesses for North Sea drilling, which would cover over 900 areas, and implementing fracking throughout the countryside were environmentally friendly practises. He said that drilling for additional fossil fuels will speed up the UK's transition to nett zero energy by the year 2050. “It’s good for jobs and good for the economy and it is good for the environment,” said Stuart. He stated that opening up new fields was green because it would have a lesser carbon effect than importing oil and gas that was extracted in a less sustainable way because UK oil and gas production was dropping at a quicker rate than the International Energy Agency required. He referred to the North Sea fossil fuel extraction as "world-leading," which was pioneered by Shell and BP. “Producing [oil and gas] domestically creates only half the emissions around production and transportation than importing it from around the world,” he said. “In terms of the economy and the environment, domestic production is a good thing and we should all get behind it … it is good for the economy, good for jobs and stops us giving money to dubious regimes.” On the subject of gas imports, the committee corrected Stuart. The UK generates 45% of its own gas and imports 38% from Norway, which has the best regulations in the world for gas extraction and long since outlawed flaring, the practise of burning off gas to the atmosphere to release methane emissions and other pollutants. Flaring still occurs during extraction in the North Sea. In order for the globe to stay within acceptable levels of global warming and achieve the objective of nett zero emissions by 2050, no new oil and gas drilling should take place after 2021, according to Clive Lewis, a Labour member of the committee who challenged Stuart. Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/12/uk-fracking-and-oil-drilling-good-for-environment-says-climate-minister-graham-stuart