Ed Miliband U-turns on his demand for Britain to ditch fossil fuels – admitting we’ll need them for years

SHADOW climate chief Ed Miliband today demanded Britain ditch fossil fuels, then admitted we’ll need them for years.

He U-turned after first saying Labour would use only green renewables by 2030.

Mr Miliband slapped down calls for new oil and gas licences, saying they would take too long to deliver results.

It comes as oil giant Shell recorded the highest profits in their entire 115-year history, a staggering £32billion – prompting calls for even bigger windfall taxes.

Mr Miliband insisted that more drilling in the North Sea would be “wrong” despite soaring prices around the world.

He says Labour would use only green renewables by 2030 to create electricity – despite 42 per cent of it currently coming from gas-fired power stations.

But he admitted under a Labour government they would carry on using the energy in the North Sea for “a long time to come”.

Critics say banning new licences would only mean having to import more oil and gas from abroad instead.

Former Labour boss, Mr Miliband said: “We’re going to carry on using the North Sea, including under a Labour Government, for a long time to come, you’re right about that.”

He insisted that big giants must face even higher taxes to curb eye-watering profits.

Industry chiefs hit out at the shadow business secretary and accused him of “misrepresenting” the global profits of energy companies.

Just five per cent of Shell’s earnings come from the UK – and the rest is global.

Mike Tholen, Offshore Energies UK’s director of sustainability, said it was wrong to offer false hopes to hard-pressed consumers that higher windfall taxes would help them.

And he said hiking it up from 75 per cent would risk even more firms taking their businesses abroad.

He said: “These calls for extra windfall taxes on profits made outside the UK make no sense and could never be implemented.

“The UK is subject to global tax agreements which say that it cannot tax profits made by companies outside of the UK.

“The UK cannot then impose a second tax just because the group has its headquarters in the UK. If we did, they would all leave.

“Our leading politicians in all parties know very well how global tax law works and we would call on them to avoid these misrepresentations.”