In February 2022, Russia escalated the somewhat-cold Russo-Ukranian war with a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. This move, described as a "special military operation" from one of the world's largest oil and gas providers, led to chaos in Europe as everyone scrambled to stop buying Russian gas and oil in efforts to avoid supporting the invasion.
For all his faults, and despite an initial delay, former Prime Minister Johnson responded with firm action, pivoting to alternative sources and a restoration of a push toward nuclear and renewables, as well as opening further drilling in the North Sea. These alternative sources included a shiny new deal with Azerbaijan for their oil and gas, further helping to drive Baku away from Moscow's sphere of influence.
The messaging was clear, we had to protect Ukraine at all costs, even if that meant a short-term economic shock and a significant detour in our journey to net-zero. The detour, however, would take us into a route that included significant investment into renewables.
In the early hours of 20th September 2023, the brewing hostilities between Azerbaijan and Armenia boiled over from minor border dispute in the ethnically Armenian region of Azerbaijan's Nagorno-Karabakh to full-scale armed conflict. Baku, sensing the lack of support from Armenia's allies, members of the Moscow-led counter to NATO, the Collective Security Treaty Organization, began a series of "anti-terrorist measures" in the region.
The language of this new conflict is not the only thing that reflects the Russo-Ukranian war. An oil supplier to the West, keen to project its culture into a region, confident in a lack of defense by their target's allies, attacks a major food-producer and commences ethnic cleansing (aka genocide).
On 19th September, on the eve of war, Sunak announced a rollback of his party's net-zero goals. There was no context given. These measures included a renewed vigour for fracking, the process of extracting gas from shallow layers of rocks in the English countryside, and a broad removal of restrictions on new oil drilling in the North Sea. To sweeten the deal for the oil companies, he also alluded to abandoning the planned future ban on new petrol and diesel vehicles, thus bolstering the future profitability of these new explorations.
In summary, on the eve of one of our key oil and gas suppliers launching an attack on an ethnic enclave with the goal of committing acts of genocide, Sunak's messaging behind the shift was an appeal to the lead-poisoned stare generation with "f**k the woke left, amirite?". Sunak, unlike Johnson, is desperate to cling to the long-outdated PR approach of he who speaks first controls the narrative.
On this occasion, holding out for a total of 12 hours, would have positioned Sunak as a defender, a hero, a Johnson-inspired Churchillian. Instead, he seems weak, short-sighted, and pathetic.
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