Burnham vows net zero by 2050 will hold after Jackdaw gasfield approval, as Rosebank decision looms

Andy Burnham chose the pages of the Guardian to say something many in his own party have privately wondered whether he means. Days after his government approved the Jackdaw gasfield, the prime minister wrote that he will not "abandon the responsibility" of fighting the climate crisis, and that Britain will stay on track for net zero by 2050. He also pledged to block new North Sea licences.

The article is his most forthright statement on net zero so far. It arrives after many MPs have privately cast doubt on how genuine his commitment is. Burnham has been pressed by industry, by political opponents and by some Labour MPs to water down the party's manifesto promises on new oil and gas licences and on the net zero targets. Acknowledging the speculation that followed the Jackdaw announcement, he wrote that his determination is "unwavering".

He did not dispute that the approval was driven by present circumstances. He pointed to "acute global instability" affecting energy security, and argued that it makes sense to use domestic resources responsibly. Gas from the field, he said, will begin heating homes and powering businesses this winter. The aim, he wrote, is to make the move to a greener future "on our terms", which he defined as giving oil and gas workers a route into new jobs and relying on homegrown gas rather than imported supplies.

Burnham said he had been moved by the situation of oil and gas workers in Aberdeen. The industry, he wrote, had suffered from deindustrialisation, with too little thought given by politicians to the places left behind. "I will not be so careless with people's lives," he said. He also called the energy wealth fund, which will convert North Sea oil and gas tax revenues into clean energy programmes, long overdue: something that should have happened more than 40 years ago.

He set the climate argument against the summer just gone. Britain, he wrote, has emerged from its hottest summer on record, with nurses collapsing on hospital wards, bus drivers working in intolerable conditions and families losing everything to wildfires. More extreme weather is forecast in the coming months. The crisis, he said, is "here, on our doorstep", and he is personally committed to confronting it. Alongside the article, he announced that RAF Chinook helicopters and A400M aircraft will fight wildfires for the first time, helping crews tackle blazes on remote moorland, steep hillsides and other hard-to-reach terrain. The announcement came ahead of a wildfire summit with fire chiefs, local leaders and experts. "Heroes shouldn't have to fight with one hand tied behind their backs," he said.

The harder test sits with the energy secretary, Miatta Fahnbulleh, who insists the decision on the Rosebank oilfield is hers alone. Sources say she is minded to block it. The chancellor, John Healey, has said he expects oil and gas revenues to feed the new energy wealth fund, which sets up a potential standoff with the Treasury. Fahnbulleh said she carries the legal responsibility to ensure the UK does not breach its climate commitments. If colleagues overturned her, she said, "all that means is we're going to be overturned in the courts," and so the process would be done properly.

Fahnbulleh also spoke of the breakdown in cross-party consensus on climate. She said she was "really concerned" and "quite sad", sadder still about the Conservatives than about Reform, because the Tories know better and have a tradition, Boris Johnson included, of working across parties on climate action. Watching that consensus burn during this summer's impacts, she said, was painful and tragic. She added that the private sector has invested £100bn in clean energy over the last two years, but that promises of jobs must be visible: "People need to see it."

The Rosebank ruling, and whether the energy wealth fund takes shape as described, will show whether the prime minister's words hold against pressure from industry, the Treasury and his own benches.