We need to invest in renewables – but we need to invest in oil and gas, too

We need heavy investment in renewable energy, says Merryn Somerset Webb. But we also need continued investment in fossil fuels, to keep prices low and limit hardship on the way to net zero. 

North Sea oil rig
This year’s windfall for oil follows huge losses in the pandemic
(Image credit: © Andy Buchanan/AFP via Getty Images)

This month has been a good one for the UK’s oil giants. Last week Shell reported 2021 earnings of $19.3bn and this week BP announced its best profit numbers in eight years. Add up what these two are making and it comes to real money, says Labour’s Anas Sarwar. Think “£44,710 a minute”. That doesn’t sound fair does it – particularly when all our energy bills are soaring?

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.