Aberdeen’s Collapsing Economy Shows the True Cost of Net Zero

Property prices plummeting 37%, job’s haemorrhaging 1,000 a month, an economy in freefall – the tragedy of UK oil capital Aberdeen shows the true cost of Net Zero and the failure of Ed Miliband’s ‘energy transition’, says Benedict Smith in the Telegraph. Here’s an excerpt.

Just over a decade ago, Aberdeen was thriving.

It was the gateway to Britain’s North Sea oil and gas industry. Average weekly earnings were higher only in London and it consistently ranked among the top UK cities for business and jobs growth.

At £215,000, property prices were nearly double the Scottish average, having risen 165% in just 10 years as the area boomed.

Following the scent of oil and gas, new arrivals appeared in their droves to fill highly paid positions. Between 2004 and 2015, the population jumped by nearly 20,000 and local businesses flourished.

The picture is starkly different today. Tumbling oil prices, punitive taxes and the underwhelming advance of renewables have tipped the North Sea energy industry into a spiral of accelerated decline that is taking Aberdeen’s property market down with it.

Energy Secretary Ed Miliband’s pledge to deliver a Net Zero transition for the area – in which jobs in oil and gas are replaced by ones in clean energy – has also fallen flat.

Rather than a renewables energy boom, some of the biggest companies in the region have scaled back investment or withdrawn entirely, seeking more profitable opportunities in other places as far-flung as the Persian Gulf.

Many of the most skilled workers have gone with them.

Around 18,000 jobs have disappeared from Aberdeen since 2010. Without intervention, the local economy will lose the equivalent of 1,000 workers a month between now and 2030, according to trade association Offshore Energies UK.

As more people flee the region, homeowners in Aberdeen watch with a mixture of anger and dismay as the value of their homes sinks while a glut of properties hits the market.

More than two thirds of homes in Aberdeen fell in value last year, according to Zoopla. The average home now sells for just £136,000 – the lowest price since 2006.

At the same time, many have found their livelihoods hit by the energy sector’s declining activity. Falling profits at some of the region’s biggest employers have left residents directly employed in oil and gas, who account for more than one in 10 locals, at risk of losing their jobs. Many more in adjacent roles face the same fate.

Some of those who bought at the peak of the housing market in 2014 have taken house price hits as high as £90,000, blasting a hole in retirement plans. By contrast, UK house prices have risen on average by more than 53% since 2014.

Worth reading in full.