With heatwaves causing record breaking temperatures across the UK this summer and droughts forecast for the future, the climate crisis should be at the forefront of our minds.

In some areas, the heat reached 40ºC, temperatures which hadn’t been predicted until 2050. The high temperatures caused chaos up and down the UK with trains cancelled, roads melting, and people unable to work in the heat.

This isn’t normal.

Research has shown that climate change makes heatwaves like these vastly more likely to happen, and the likelihood is that they will become both more frequent and longer lasting in the next few years.

One of the biggest causes of climate change is the extraction and burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas, which as a society we rely on heavily.

In order to reduce our emissions, halt climate change and bring down soaring gas prices, we must urgently transition away from our current fossil fuel-based system, and invest in an energy system powered by renewables and a reduced demand for energy. Regulation of offshore oil and gas extraction is a power reserved to the UK Government, and this autumn they will launch a new licensing round where energy companies can bid for licences to develop even more new oil and gas fields.

Climate scientists are clear that the more new oil and gas fields we build, the longer we will be locked into an energy system that is making climate change worse by the day.

We need the UK Government to stop approving new fossil fuel projects and instead invest in renewables and energy efficiency projects such as home insulation.

We can’t just turn off the tap of North Sea oil and gas – oil and gas workers need access to jobs in green industries, and everyone needs affordable alternatives to using fossil fuels in our everyday lives.

That’s why a just transition is so important, so that workers and ordinary people don’t lose out in the phase out of fossil fuels.

The good news is that alternative technologies, such as renewable energy generation and energy efficiency measures already exist and are ready to be scaled up.

And new renewables are four times cheaper than gas.

We could have a safer climate and lower energy bills for good. We just need the Government to act and we need our local MPs to take a stand against new oil & gas fields. Just like we are.

Right now, people across the country are taking action against the UK Government’s recent approval of Shell’s Jackdaw gas field, which would produce enough gas to equal half the annual emissions of Scotland. I’m joining them. Jackdaw will do nothing to lower our bills.

It’ll just make Shell even more profit, while worsening the climate crisis The people of Dorset deserve a safe future and affordable energy. Right now, we’ve got neither.

The UK public wants a transition to clean, affordable renewable energy as soon as possible.

It seems that it’s only the UK government and the oil & gas industry that don’t.

DANIEL GLENNON

Address supplied