The Truth About Russian Oil, Net Zero, and North Sea Drilling

**Alastair Campbell** (0:01)
Two wars, first in Ukraine and now in Iran, have delivered two monumental oil and gas shocks to the global economy. But they've also made the politics of energy impossible to ignore, from the cost of living to national security. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump is still on his drill baby drill mission. The climate debate has regressed into yet another culture war battleground between left and right. And here we are in the middle of another sweltering record breaking heat wave. If that wasn't enough, we now need more energy than ever to fuel the enormous data centers which the AI masters of the universe insist that we need. So no surprise that my recent debates with Rory on Net Zero and the climate crisis have generated a lot of interest and many, many questions. How close are we to a lights out scenario? Will we ever actually reach Net Zero? Is North Sea drilling a matter of national security or an environmentally reckless fantasy? To answer all those questions and more, we're delighted to be joined by a real expert, European Commissioner for Energy and All Things Climate, Dan Jørgensen, for this special edition of The Rest Is Politics, Question Time.

**Rory Stewart** (1:04)
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**Rory Stewart** (3:12)
Welcome to The Rest Is Politics, Question Time with me, Rory Stewart.

**Alastair Campbell** (3:15)
And me, Alastair Campbell.

**Rory Stewart** (3:16)
Let's start by, Dan, firstly, just explaining to people briefly how we met, which is we were at a summit in Helsinki. And it seemed to me, and this is where a lot of the questions are going to go, that we're dealing with four different things. We're dealing with decarbonisation, climate. We're dealing with energy security and independence.
We're dealing with affordability and bills, and we're dealing with industrial strategy. And I guess the big question that keeps coming through again and again is, when do all those four things overlap neatly, and when are there some tensions between them? But let's start with a question from Chris, which comes straight out of Iran and straight of Hormuz. How close are we to lights out due to the Iran War and the continued closure of the Strait of Hormuz?

**Dan Jørgensen** (4:02)
Yeah, so thank you for that. There's no doubt that we are in an energy crisis right now because of the situation in the Middle East. But this is more of a price crisis. And really, it's more of a fossil energy crisis than an energy crisis in general. However, if this continues, now hopefully there's a peace and hopefully the Strait will open again and hopefully things will normalize. That will take some time. Maybe we can get back to that. But hopefully we are on that route. But if it doesn't, if the war breaks out again, then this can transfer into a crisis of security of supply. And then of course we are in a much more serious situation.