LONDON — Rishi Sunak’s daughters might be climate-conscious — but they aren’t “eco-zealots,” the British prime minister insisted Wednesday.
Sunak used an LBC radio phone-in to mount a defense of his government’s decision to this week green-light hundreds of new oil and gas licenses in the North Sea, amid a backlash from environmental campaigners warning it flies in the face of a promise to reduce the U.K.’s carbon emissions to net-zero by 2050.
Asked if he is confident he can win over his young daughters — who the PM has previously said push him on environmental issues — Sunak said the pair were open to “sensible, practical arguments.”
“I think on this topic, like most people they don’t approach it as some kind of — they’re not eco-zealots. They actually, I think, are open to sensible, practical arguments,” he said. “We have good chat around our table about all these things.”
Outside of his family, the prime minister has come under fire over his approach to the U.K.’s legally-binding net-zero target. Sunak has said he is committed to the pledge — but insists he wants to get there in a “proportionate and pragmatic” way that doesn’t add unnecessary costs for Brits.
But backbench Tory MP Chris Skidmore, who signed the net-zero pledge into law while in government, warned the move to open up new oil and gas exploration in the North Sea was the “wrong decision at precisely the wrong time.”
Speaking Wednesday, Sunak defended that move, saying he “100 percent” believes “that what I’m doing is right.”
“We are going to get to net-zero, that’s my commitment. But even when we’re there, we will still need fossil fuels,” he said.
