A natural gas drilling platform in the North Sea, an oil field in Texas, and a solar panel factory in China may seem unrelated to each other, but your energy bill says it all.
British household energy bills are likely to rise by more than a quarter in January next year, according to the latest forecasts from energy suppliers British Gas, EDF and E.ON. Calculated for an average family, annual expenses may increase by about 460 pounds (US$620; NT$4,500; NT$18,700).
For the second time in the past four years, a war fought thousands of kilometers away is directly reflected in the bills British people receive.
Since the United States and Israel launched an attack on Iran in February this year, the Strait of Hormuz (Strait of Hormuz) has been effectively closed, causing oil and natural gas prices to rise sharply.
Prices are expected to rise further as winter approaches. Natural gas demand is increasing while European gas reserve levels have fallen to their lowest levels since records began in 2011.
A bigger threat still lies ahead: climate warming.
To limit future warming and avoid the worst consequences of climate change, reducing carbon emissions is crucial. However, cutting emissions while holding down energy prices is proving to be a difficult task, and it's not just the UK that's facing this problem.
This week, as world leaders attend the United Nations climate summit COP31 in Antalya, Turkey, the world is facing the same contradiction.
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Energy and climate policy have become a frontline in the competition between the two energy superpowers, with other countries caught in the middle.
The United States is betting on fossil fuels, continuing to extract record amounts of oil and natural gas and pushing allies to buy related energy products.
China is betting on its electricity economy, mass-producing solar panels, batteries and electric vehicles that can replace fossil fuels and exporting them to the global market.
Whether fossil fuels or renewables win out will not only determine how much the world has to pay for energy, but also how quickly the world can reduce emissions that are warming the planet.
Nearly a quarter of the UK's natural gas imports currently come from the United States, and a large number of clean energy equipment relies on Chinese supplies, so it is being pulled by both routes at the same time.
So, which path will the UK choose? Are there any compromises? And how will all this affect people's energy bills?
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two choices
Whiteness Head is located on the coast of Moray Firth near Inverness, Scotland. There is a narrow strip of sandbars and dunes extending to the sea.
Behind it is an industrial dock. In the past 30 years, thousands of workers have built large offshore platforms here to help develop North Sea oil resources.
Ming Yang, a large Chinese wind turbine manufacturer, originally planned to invest 1.5 billion pounds to build a local factory, which could initially create up to 1,500 jobs, hoping to revitalize the industrial area. However, in March this year, the British government ultimately vetoed the investment on national security grounds after US lawmakers urged the UK to block the plans.
Last month, the British government approved the development of Jackdaw, a new natural gas field in the North Sea - rejecting Chinese wind turbine projects but approving the extraction of North Sea natural gas.
Few countries are more vulnerable to energy shocks than the UK - natural gas heats most homes and in many cases determines wholesale electricity prices. According to estimates from the think tank Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) and the Third Generation Environmentalist Organization (E3G), the last round of energy crisis triggered by Russia's invasion of Ukraine caused British households to bear an additional expenditure of about 63 billion pounds, with an average increase of about 2,200 pounds (US$2,970; NT$21,600; NT$89,500) per household.
image copyrightEPA
Less than half of the gas Britain uses today comes from its own North Sea fields, while imported energy often comes from regions that turn out to be unstable or unreliable.
Meanwhile, British Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh said that combating climate change remains a government priority after the UK experienced its hottest summer on record.
The Met Office's chief scientist told the BBC's Panorama program that this year's heatwaves, droughts and wildfires would be almost impossible to occur without global warming.
However, when reporters asked Fang Baoni which was more important between energy bills and climate goals, she answered without hesitation: "With the continued pressure on the cost of living, reducing energy bills is undoubtedly my primary goal."
"We are overly exposed to global markets that we have no control over," Fang Baoni told the BBC.
"What's the solution? It's to develop local clean energy."
There are basically only two ways to make the UK's energy supply more dependent on local sources: either extract more energy or build more energy.
The case for drilling
Hours after the British government approved the development of the North Sea natural gas field Jack Road, US President Donald Trump posted a response on his social platform Truth Social. Trump has been an enemy of wind turbines since 2006 when he opposed the construction of a wind farm near his golf course in Aberdeenshire.
He wrote: "They should mine with all their might!!!"
"Tear down those ridiculously expensive wind turbines!"
Now, the British government faces an even more difficult decision, which is whether to approve Rosebank, the UK's largest undeveloped oil field west of Shetland.
Rosebank is much larger than Jack Road. Ms Fong said Rosebank would produce about seven times more emissions than Jack Road and its main output would be oil rather than gas.
The issue has reportedly caused divisions within the cabinet and the government is expected to make a decision within weeks.
image copyrightPress Association
Opponents of the British government have begun to blame high energy bills on the government's reluctance to expand extraction.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch asked the prime minister to "stop dragging his feet" and approve the project, saying further extraction was "the only way to protect families from rising energy prices".
Richard Tice of Reform UK said: "If we use our own gas... it will help lower our energy bills."
Last week's midterm elections in the United States reminded the outside world to pay attention to political risks. The sharp rise in gasoline prices is widely seen as one of the important reasons why Trump's Republican Party lost control of Congress.
However, when a reporter asked whether increasing domestic oil and natural gas production in the UK could really reduce bills, Fang Baoni's answer was very clear: "No."
"At the end of the day, all this oil and gas is sold on the global market," she said.
Opponents are more direct.
"Rosebank actually doesn't do much for energy security," said Tessa Khan, executive director of Uplift, an advocacy group that has been challenging the Rosebank project through the courts.
She believes: "What it really brings is to send a very dangerous signal to the outside world - whether the UK should take the issue of climate change seriously after just experiencing such a summer."
However, if you take a broader view, the debate looks different.
North Sea oil and gas production is actually in a long-term downward trend. Output has fallen by more than two-thirds since its peak in 1999. The Office for Budget Responsibility predicts that even if Rosebank is eventually approved and put into production, North Sea production will continue to decline at an annual rate of about 10% in the future.
Whatever the government decides, the North Sea's best oil-producing days are behind it.
The reserves of the Jackdaw gas field are only equivalent to a few months of the UK's natural gas needs; as for the Rosebank oil field, the reserves are not enough to meet the UK's oil consumption for a year.
image copyrightReuters
Last week, the British government proposed a bill that would formally ban the issuance of new oil and gas exploration licenses into law.
As for the Rosebank Oilfield, it has already obtained a license and is therefore not affected by the ban.
This means that the government may have the best of both worlds: on the one hand, it can approve the development of the last large oil field, and on the other hand, it can promise not to approve new oil and gas exploration projects in the future.
With energy bills expected to rise again next January, that could be an attractive combination.
The case for electronics
Another option is to build more energy facilities.
Natural gas needs to be purchased, burned, and then purchased again. In contrast, wind turbines or solar panels require capital investment to build but can then generate electricity for decades without having to rely on a constant supply of fuel.
The Climate Change Committee, the British government's climate advisory body, estimates that if the UK continues to rely on high-carbon energy, household energy bills will rise by 59% in the event of an energy price shock similar to 2022; but if renewable energy is the mainstay, the increase will be only 4%.
According to the International Renewable Energy Agency (International Renewable Energy Agency), between 2010 and 2024, the cost of generating electricity from new solar farms fell by 90%, and the cost of onshore wind power fell by 70%.
However, global inflation has recently pushed up construction costs again. Danish energy developer Ørsted canceled plans to build a large wind farm called Hornsea 4 off the coast of Yorkshire last year, citing rising supply chain costs.
Rising interest rates have also made the situation worse. Because much of the cost of wind and solar farms is upfront, developers must borrow heavily before any revenue is generated.
In addition, the UK faces another problem.
The UK will need to build expensive new transmission networks to deliver this renewable electricity to the towns and cities that need it. At the same time, gas-fired power plants still often determine wholesale electricity prices, meaning some cost savings may not be directly reflected in consumers' electricity bills.
What this all means is that building more renewable energy sources doesn’t necessarily automatically lead to lower home energy bills.
China problem
Another issue is China’s dominance in clean energy technologies. China produces most of the world's solar panels and batteries, as well as about two-thirds of all electric vehicles.
Moreover, China's lead is still expanding. According to data from the think tank Ember, in March this year, China’s exports of solar panels, batteries and electric vehicles hit a new high, with a year-on-year increase of 70%.
The UK wants to transition away from fossil fuels, which not only leave households vulnerable to price fluctuations but also contribute to global warming. However, much of the technology and equipment used to replace these fossil fuels comes from another country that the UK is increasingly reluctant to rely on - China.
When asked whether the UK was switching from relying on oil-producing countries to relying on Beijing, Fang Baoni said frankly: "Frankly, we are."
But she added: "We have a diverse global market."
Fang Baoni said that the UK will continue to purchase relevant products from China when needed, but she hopes that more equipment can be produced in the UK.
"I would like to see wind turbines," she said.
However, Mingyang originally proposed to produce wind turbines in the UK.
In this regard, Fang Baoni said: "There are security risks involved, and national security is always the primary consideration."
However, the British government has never publicly stated what the risks are.
Just two days before the Jack Road project was approved, Japan's Sumitomo Electric opened the UK's first high-voltage direct current (HVDC) submarine cable factory in Nigg, not far from Whiteness Point, which can create up to 250 jobs.
In other words, the UK still welcomes foreign investment – just not necessarily from China.
role reversal
Earlier this year, the United States officially withdrew from the Paris Agreement, and it is also expected that the United States will not send a delegation to attend this year's 31st United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP31).
The United Nations pointed out that in the absence of pressure from the United States, other countries have less incentive to make more aggressive emission reduction commitments. The current national emission reduction targets submitted by various countries combined will only reduce global emissions by about 6% by 2035.
However, scientists believe that limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius would require emission reductions about ten times that level.
China is starting to fill this gap.
Li Shuo, a researcher at the Asia Society Policy Institute, described this as a "role reversal."
He said that China has been a "quite conservative participant" in climate negotiations in the past, but now believes that promoting the global climate agenda is in its own national interest, and "this has just begun."
One of China's goals is to achieve one of the core goals of COP31 five years ahead of schedule, which is to have electricity account for 35% of overall energy consumption.
In addition, the force driving the energy transition increasingly comes from Chinese companies rather than the emission reduction commitments of governments.
"This is basically a Chinese story," Li Shuo said.
If this situation continues, the UK will be in a rather embarrassing situation.
A series of difficult choices lie ahead, all at a time when family financial pressures are already heavy.
Cover photo credit: Getty Images/Reuters
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