It's wait and see on UK's Johnson

摘要

As new British prime minister Boris Johnson took office last month,we wondered if his administration might change any upstream policies.After several days of research,we can say that no one seems to know at this early juncture.Indeed,we checked with a spokesperson at the association,Oil & Gas UK,who seemed rather irritated that we even posed the question:”It's early days,so we're not going to have a comment at this early stage.We'll have to wait and see-talking about it now would be much too speculative.”Perhaps some of the quandry is that Johnson is focusing most of his energy(pun not intended)on Brexit.That having been said,some confusion maybe due to previous,conflicting statements made by Johnson,both as former mayor of London and as UK foreign secretary.While London's mayor,Johnson issued a report in October 2011,speaking of his green credentials and touting policies to reduce the city's greenhouse gas emissions.Yet,in December 2012,Johnson told The Telegraph,”It [tracking] is glorious news for humanity.It doesn't need the subsidy of wind power.I don't know whether it will work in Britain,but we should get tracking right away.”Later,he was criticized for writing articles favoring climate skepticism.And environmentalists criticized his record in Parliament,where he voted against carbon capture and storage technology investments,and in favor of taxing renewable energy projects.