When policymakers talk about a “just transition” for workers in fossil fuel industries, they rarely actually ask those workers what they want. In the UK, not a single public body has consulted offshore oil and gas workers about their livelihood and the future of the energy industry. This has massive ramifications for the possible success of a Green New Deal, not just here, but worldwide.

I work at Platform London, an environmental and social justice collective. Last week we, along with Friends of the Earth Scotland and Greenpeace, published our survey of 1,383 offshore oil and gas workers — a sample representing 4.5 percent of the total workforce in the UK Continental Shelf (UKCS). The twenty-six questions, developed with oil workers and trade union officials, focused on the impacts of COVID-19 and the recent oil price crash, more general questions of offshore work, and alternative employment opportunities.

What may appear to be the key finding is that when asked if they had heard of a “just transition,” 91 percent of respondents said no. This term is commonly used by other people to refer to oil and gas workers’ particular struggles — and link them to other workers fighting against the future impacts of climate change. But the reality is that campaign groups, NGOs, and policymakers have so failed to reach the workers themselves that most do not even know this expression.