Source: BBC Radio 4: Today
URL: N/A
Date: 10/09/2015
Event: Bryony Worthington: "we shouldn't take an in-principle objection to" fracking
Credit: BBC Radio 4
People:
Sarah Montague: Labour's shadow energy minister, Baroness Bryony Worthington, used to be Friends of the Earth's climate change campaigner, so it is significant that today, in a debate in the Lords, she will be calling on environmentalists to drop their opposition to shale gas. Her argument: that it is more energy efficient to frack our own gas than to compress it in Qatar and ship it thousands of miles to heat British homes. Well, Bryony Worthington joins us here in the studio now, and we're joined from Cambridge by Craig Bennett, who's Chief Executive of Friends of the Earth - good morning to you both.
Bryony Worthington: Good morning.
Craig Bennett: Good morning.
Sarah Montague: Have I characterised your argument well, that this is the lesser of two evils?
Bryony Worthington: Well, thank you, Sarah. Um, well my position has always been that climate change is a huge challenge and we've got to successfully decarbonise, take out the carbon and the greenhouse gases from our energy system, and that is a huge challenge. And that we shouldn't have an a priori objection to any low-carbon technologies, and that when it comes to shale, there are legitimate concerns, absolutely correct, that we need to do this safely. But we shouldn't take an in-principle objection to the technology, and nor should we do that for any other of the low-carbon technologies, because this is the big challenge we face.
Sarah Montague: Right. Craig Bennett, do you accept this argument, that you've sort of painted yourself into an ideological corner, here, by your in-principle objection?
Craig Bennett: No, our opposition to shale gas in the UK is a practical one. I have enormous respect for Baroness Worthington and the work she's done, over the years, but it's been over 10 years - around 10 years since she's worked at Friends of the Earth, and she's obviously been contributing in the Westminster and Whitehall bubble in that time. I think what I'd like to do is invite Baroness Worthington to come on a tour with me to local communities up and down the country that are facing the threat of shale gas, and to understand the concerns of about tens of thousands of truck movements through local communities, flaring in our countryside, air pollution, water pollution.
And on the very important issue of climate change, I would say, you know, we can have this tiny little debate about whether shale gas might be a little bit less lower carbon than another form or not. It's not low carbon, let's be clear about that, no-one thinks it's low carbon - it's equivalent of sort of saying, you know, if you're addicted to cigarettes, shall we move from high tar to medium tar. We actually have to kick the habit, we have to end the addiction. And the problem with shale gas is it binds us in to yet more fossil-fuel infrastructure for decades to come, when we need to be kicking the habit.
Sarah Montague: Baroness Worthington?
Bryony Worthington: Um, again I have a huge amount of respect for Craig, and we've been colleagues in the past, so, um, there's many -
Sarah Montague: But you are in the Westminster bubble and you are now out of touch.
Bryony Worthington: Well, Craig's in the green group bubble, you know, we're both in our bubbles, we have different jobs to do. My job is to hold the government to account and to scrutinise legislation policy that they bring forward, and what we've been doing as Labour is taking a very practical approach to making sure that we have shale gas done with the best environmental regulations -
Sarah Montague: But it's a bit - what about that - but it's a bit like going from high-tar cigarettes to medium-tar cigarettes.
Bryony Worthington: Well, but that can actually have a massive impact. The reason we have reduced our carbon emissions in the UK is because of the dash for gas, and we've been doing all we can, now, through renewables and energy efficiency, to continue that trend, but it's proving very difficult, because actually the common enemy really is very cheap coal, and I'm sure Craig would agree with me, that actually, in terms of real risks and threats today, it's actually coal that's imperilling the world, and that's the solution we need to look at.
Sarah Montague: Craig Bennett, do you agree with that?
Craig Bennett: I would say the real risks we face today is a government that's been in power for 3-4 months now, and in those 3-4 months has [been] dismantling the very climate policy framework we've put in place over many decades. This government has hammered programmes on energy efficiency, hammered programmes on renewables. If actually we worked really hard on energy efficiency, renewables, we could cut our gas imports by a third in the next 15 years. Now shale gas is not going to do anything in the next 15 years, but it's going to take at least 15-20 years to get going, even if there was no opposition to it. And that's not just a green group bubble, let's be clear -
Bryony Worthington: Can I just say - Craig -
Craig Bennett: Scotland, Wales, New York State, Netherlands, France have all got moratoriums in place, on shale gas.
Sarah Montague: And two of the Labour leadership contenders - Jeremy Corbyn and Andy Burnham - both say if they became leader, they would oppose fracking. So it's interesting, your timing, when making this statement today.
Bryony Worthington: Well, the timing came from a long discussion I had with your science correspondents about a whole host of things, including the thing that I'm most interested in -
Sarah Montague: But you're making a speech in the Lords today.
Bryony Worthington: No, the speech was yesterday.
Sarah Montague: Ah - forgive me.
Bryony Worthington: And the - and that was mainly a discussion about carbon capture and storage, which is a great passion of mine, because the reality is that we will continue to use fossil fuels and the solution to that is then to take the waste gases and bury them.
Sarah Montague: But just on this question of timing - is this your last window in which you can say this, because after Sunday there's a very good chance the Labour policy will be different?
Bryony Worthington: We'll have to revisit this on Monday - I'll work with whoever's elected leader, and I'm sure that whoever's elected leader will look at the evidence. So let's ask them, when we know on Saturday.
Sarah Montague: And if they hold their positions, and either Jeremy Corbyn or Andy Burnham are leader, you'll zip your mouth and not make this argument after Sunday.
Bryony Worthington: I'm first and foremost an environmentalist, and I will continue to hold the view that climate change is the biggest challenge we face, and we've got to be very pragmatic in the way that we deal with that, if we want to make progress and to avert the risks that we know are coming.
Sarah Montague: Okay, and on that que-
Craig Bennett: On that -
Sarah Montague: Sorry.
Craig Bennett: On that, we both agree.
Sarah Montague: Craig Bennett, Bryony Worthington - Baroness Worthington - thank you both very much.
Bryony Worthington: Thank you.