Greens accuse Labour of hiding position to avoid criticism before contest, in which Zack Polanski is standing

A decision on approving the controversial Jackdaw gasfield in the North Sea is to be delayed until later this autumn, with the Greens accusing Labour of hiding their position before the crucial Holborn and St Pancras byelection.

Miatta Fahnbulleh, the energy secretary, had been poised to give her recommendation to approve the Jackdaw field off the coast of Aberdeen next week.

Energy secretary could recommend new North Sea drilling next week, as ministers also consider approval for Rosebank oilfield

Ministers are poised to approve a controversial new gasfield in the North Sea this month, according to government sources, and are considering approving a major oilfield later this year.

Miatta Fahnbulleh, the energy secretary, will give her recommendation to approve the Jackdaw field off the coast of Aberdeen as soon as next week, according to people close to the decision, and the formal approval could follow a week after.

Government says Green leader’s proposed moratorium on ‘energy-guzzling’ AI projects would be disaster for economy

Labour has rejected calls to pause construction of major AI infrastructure in Britain after the Green party leader, Zack Polanski, said it was time to “slam the brakes on these energy-guzzling, water-guzzling datacentres”.

The government hit back at the opposition party’s proposal of a “moratorium other than [for] local-scale datacentres for the local community”, saying it “would be a disaster for jobs and national security”.

Soaring prices are plunging struggling families into debt. The government must support them in the short term as it invests in a clean energy future

Fuelled by the consequences of Donald Trump’s disastrous war on Iran, household energy debt in Britain is continuing to soar, rising to a record £6bn by the end of June. That figure is set to hit £7bn by the end of the year, as the government’s cap on gas and electricity prices goes up to a three-year high in October. The human cost among the less well off will be more people regularly choosing whether to skip meals, ignore other bills or stay cold this winter.

Such is life at the sharp end of the cost of living crisis, which Andy Burnham has made it his priority to address since arriving in Downing Street. The day after he became prime minister, Mr Burnham announced that VAT would be removed from electricity bills from the beginning of October. But the Middle East-related rise in the price cap, announced on Wednesday, more than wipes out the effect of his cut. In an era of geopolitical volatility, high energy costs have become the new normal.

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Colin Hines says Andy Burnham’s focus should be on drastically cutting fossil fuel use in a way that reduces bills and generates secure jobs

It is hardly surprising that many who were optimistic and supportive of Andy Burnham becoming prime minister, but who also prioritised tackling climate chaos, are becoming increasingly unsure about him, given his tardiness in emphasising this threat as an overriding policy objective (Labour ‘could lose up to 50 seats’ to Greens if new drilling in North Sea approved, 19 August).

One of the problems he faces is that the political debate around energy is obsessed with relatively short-term fossil fuel supplies. Instead, the focus should be on drastically and rapidly cutting fossil fuel use in a way that reduces bills and generates secure jobs through a devolved energy programme for every postcode.

Heatwaves, high energy prices, calls for reindustrialisation and North Sea drilling are all high on the to-do list

Wildfires cast a pall of smoke this week over Greater Manchester, whose former mayor Andy Burnham stands on the threshold of No 10. Amid three UK heatwaves so far this year, which have killed thousands of people in England and Wales, damaged harvests and left children crying in classrooms, the new prime minister’s plans for the climate crisis remain as shrouded as his city.

“Burnham has been very quiet about the climate [crisis] so far,” says Chris Venables, an environmental campaigner and fellow at the Green Alliance thinktank. “I don’t think [it] is at the forefront of his mind, but that does not mean he will water down this agenda.”

Kemi Badenoch, who joined US anti-abortion activists and European far-right parties at ARC, described energy secretary as a ‘villain’

Britain’s net zero policies and the energy secretary, Ed Miliband, have come under fire at a conference of conservatives, rightwing populists and wealthy US backers linked to Donald Trump.

The energy policies pursued by the British government were described as a “tragic mistake” by Trump’s energy secretary, one of a number of officials from the US administration attending the event.

Energy secretary hails £100bn milestone in this parliament and says it is ‘only the start of what we want to achieve’

Ed Miliband has hailed a boost to UK jobs and growth as government data reveals that private sector companies have pledged more than £100bn in investment into the green economy so far in this parliament.

Offshore wind, solar power and the electricity grid make up the bulk of the planned investment, most of it between 2024 and 2031, which will go to all regions of the UK and comes from a mixture of UK companies and overseas sources including the EU and Japan.

Prime minister was forced to row back on some policies despite strong support among voters for climate action

Keir Starmer has faced a problem no Labour government has needed to deal with before. His energy and climate policies – core to solving the cost of living crisis – have come under attack from opposition parties, which have made dismantling the agenda one of their top priorities, second only to immigration, in their pitch to voters.

This is new in British politics, where a cross-party consensus on the climate and environment has held at least since the days of Margaret Thatcher. She warned the UN of the climate crisis in 1988; David Cameron in 2006 urged voters to “vote blue, go green”; Theresa May enshrined in law the requirement to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050; Boris Johnson championed the Cop26 UN climate summit in Glasgow in 2021; even Rishi Sunak only tried a partial rollback of green policies as a last desperate throw before calling an election.

Energy specialists say abandoning net zero and increasing oil and gas drilling would cause more instability for Britons

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Abandoning net zero and drilling for more oil and gas in the North Sea would be a massive setback for the UK and would not help the economy, leading experts have said in response to claims by the former prime minister Tony Blair.

“This is a bizarre intervention to make during the worst May heatwave on record and when the Iran crisis is providing yet more evidence of the enormous costs of oil and gas,” said Ed Matthew, the UK programme director at the E3G thinktank. “Clean energy is cheaper energy – it protects our bills from prices skyrocketing, its running costs are virtually zero, and it doesn’t cause climate change which threatens economic collapse ... The government should ignore Blair’s ideological nonsense and focus on what works.”