OFFSHORE union leaders have warned of a North Sea jobs massacre, with 12,000 oil and gas job lost in nine months and “worse to come” if there is not urgent and immediate action.

The Rail, Maritime and Transport workers’ union (RMT) hit out today at the Committee on Climate Change’s lack of action in the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy.

The union accused the committee of pondering “the distant future” in a report, issued this week by the right-wing Policy Exchange think tank, which said 40,000 jobs could be created in energy by 2050. 

Despite this, the report said that many workers are faced with “significant barriers” preventing them transitioning from their current jobs to green energy projects.

RMT said that all the committee offered workers was to “ask the Treasury about re-training” and what it called “the ramblings of this government’s favourite right-wing think tank.”

The report also calls for a halving of the price of offshore wind energy by 2050, which the union said would drive developers to the “cheapest contractors” thereby “locking tens of thousands of British workers out of the green industrial revolution.”

RMT general secretary Mick Cash said: “This is a profound insult to those key workers who have lost their jobs during the pandemic and to those still slogging their guts out in the North Sea, on ships and in our ports, to keep the country running while politicians design an economy without them.”

Mr Cash also hit out at the government’s recent decision to cut rail infrastructure funding, saying “we must ensure that Covid-19 does not push more people into their cars.”