New research in the United Kingdom has uncovered a way to speed their transition away from fossil fuels while ensuring that the workers in those industries aren’t left hanging. 

According to a report from the Guardian, research from Oil Change International shows that it would cost roughly £1.9 billion ($2.5 billion) a year to safely make the transition from oil and gas to wind and solar power over the next few years. However, by making the UK’s Windfall Tax on oil and gas companies permanent, the proposed program would pay for itself. 

Of that total, £1.1 billion ($1.46 billion) would go toward the creation of new jobs in the wind energy sector, £440 million ($584 million) would help make ports more capable of handling maintenance and construction of offshore wind farms, and £335 million ($445 million) would go toward retraining oil and gas workers to instead work on wind farms. 

The windfall tax, or energy profits levy, was put into place after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 led to a massive jump in oil and gas prices, which led to hundreds of billions of dollars in profit for those companies. While the original bill was only supposed to last a few years, the government has extended the program through 2030, and OCI’s projections show that making it permanent would generate £2 billion ($2.7 billion) in revenue for the government. 

The British government under Prime Minister Keir Starmer has prioritized a transition away from planet-warming dirty energy sources like oil and natural gas while shifting toward renewable energy. It announced its commitment at a conference in London in April. 

The plan has drawn criticism from the opposition Conservative and Reform parties, who want to continue to exploit the U.K.’s North Sea oil reserves. However, with those reserves starting to dwindle, OCI’s Rosemary Harris noted that change is going to need to happen either way. 

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“Transitioning to a renewable energy economy is one of the greatest opportunities the U.K. has to create secure, well-paid jobs for energy workers and build a fairer future,” Harris said. “But right now, the government is failing to meet the challenges facing workers and communities. As jobs disappear and the cost of living soars, communities are being left behind. This plays right into the hands of those who wish to weaponize the government’s inaction for their own profits, under the guise of caring about workers.

“We need to see the government take the needs of workers seriously, through coordinated, purposeful, and crucially funded interventions to support them. It should be clear to everyone at this point that we cannot rely on the market and industry bosses to deliver these.”

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