GIVEN our increasing awareness of the role of fossil fuel companies in our climate emergency, is it not time for MP, Kevin Hollinrake to abandon his pro-fracking stance?

Or does the fossil fuel companies’ duty to maximise profits for the benefit of shareholders, a pill bountifully sugared by loudly protesting their green credentials, trump all other considerations for our MP?

For more than 50 years these companies have knowingly been responsible for more than a third of greenhouse gas emissions. This week the head of Angus Energy has loudly proclaimed his green convictions and practices, ostensibly taking on board some of the arguments against fracking, and gradually abandoning oil whilst pushing for sizeable profits from the exploitation of gas in Lincolnshire. His justification? The demand is there.

At the same time, so the Rystad Energy consultancy tells us, the oil companies, not disputing the gravity of the emergency, “believe....philosophically (sic)...that it is not for energy companies to curtail the use of energy”, (Shell), maintaining (Total) that they are not responsible for how their products were used by consumers.

To accuse these companies of mere cognitive dissonance would be to let them off the hook. It is more sinister than that. This is hardly the 45 per cent reduction in emissions scientists call for by 2030 to avoid catastrophic consequences.

Safe and secure energy, Mr Hollinrake? I wonder.

David Cragg-James, Stonegrave