'Write to your MPs and ask them to oppose new oil and gas licensing and further airport expansion'

Julian Briggs on climate change, oil and gas licensing and further airport expansion

Watching homes burn in the Midlands this week, as Britain lives throughits fifth heatwave of what's shaping up to be the hottest summer onrecord, I found myself thinking back to the 2007 floods here in Sheffield.

Firefighters struggled to control a wildfire which broke out on Sheffield's Manor Fields Park on August 13, 2026 | Paul Atkin / SWNS

placeholder image — Firefighters struggled to control a wildfire which broke out on Sheffield's Manor Fields Park on August 13, 2026 | Paul Atkin / SWNS

Fires have been breaking out during the recent dry conditions (Photo: Paul Atkin)

Different extreme, same underlying story: our climate is changing, and it's costing people their homes.

I'm 69 and I've lived in Sheffield most of my life.

This city knows how to reinvent itself, from steel to the green and hydrogen steel technologies now being developed here, and that gives me real hope.

What doesn't give me hope is a government still approving new oil and gas licences, while public money goes into reopening and expanding Doncaster Sheffield Airport and backing a third runway at Heathrow.

We should be backing the jobs of the future here in South Yorkshire, not locking in more fossil fuel use for decades to come.

I'd urge fellow readers to write to their MPs and ask them to oppose new oil and gas licensing and further airport expansion.