Fracking: Think again, campaigner urges environmentalists
Environmentalists should keep cool heads over fracking, says Friends of the Earth's former climate campaigner.
Bryony Worthington - now Labour shadow energy minister - says fracking will create less CO2 than compressing gas in Qatar and shipping it to Britain.
But she insists shale gas should only be developed if its emissions are captured and stored underground.
The current FoE position is that more fossil fuel exploitation will further destabilise the climate.
Nonetheless, Baroness Worthington's intervention may prove significant. She is a professional climate and energy analyst, and one of the architects of the UK's radical Climate Change Act.
"We have to be realistic," she told BBC News. "We are going to be using gas for a long time because of the huge role it plays for heating homes and for industry.
"The important thing is to minimize the carbon emissions from gas. That means if we can get our own fracked gas, it's better to use that than importing gas that's been compressed at great energy cost somewhere else."
