A charity shop in Fraserburgh near Aberdeen is raising money for tsunami victims in Zimbabwe.

So you stop and think. Where is the money actually going?

That’s what happens when the story doesn’t match reality.

And that’s the risk with parts of UK energy policy.

We’re told shutting down North Sea oil and gas is progress towards Net Zero. Sounds right.

But the UK still needs oil and gas. That hasn’t changed. So we import it.

Same demand. Same consumption. More shipping. Often higher emissions. So what exactly have we reduced?

Not demand. Not global emissions. Just domestic production. Aberdeen sees it clearly. We’re winding down a high-standard, high-skill industry and replacing it with imports from countries with lower environmental standards.

That’s not transition. That’s displacement. If the goal is Net Zero, the sequence matters:

→ Keep producing what we still need → Use that revenue to fund the transition → Scale alternatives properly → Then phase it down

Do it in that order.

Otherwise you end up with a policy that looks good on paper but is another tsunami in Zimbabwe.