Freya, Friends of the Earth Scotland
Stopping Rosebank – the campaign continues. In September the UK Government approved the Rosebank oil field. But the fight doesn’t end here. As we reported at this web site on 17 October, a petition was launched for stopping Rosebank.
Friends of the Earth Scotland believe that by giving Rosebank the go-ahead, the UK Government is denying the reality of the climate crisis that is having devastating impacts across the world.
They continue: “This reckless decision flies in the face of all available climate science which says that to have any chance of remaining within safe climate limits, we must not extract any new oil or gas. Over 700 scientists wrote to the UK Government to tell them this in March.
“The Rosebank oil field would still be extracting oil and gas in 2051, well beyond the date at which Scotland and the UK has pledged to be ‘net zero’. Over its lifetime this single field would produce the equivalent climate pollution to the combined annual emissions of the world’s 28 lowest-income countries.
“What is also shocking is that the UK Government is making the public subsidise 91% of the costs of developing Rosebank, handing Equinor – the company behind the field – £2.8 billion through a deliberate loophole in its windfall tax.
“The windfall tax was supposed to help households pay their energy bills this winter, but instead it is further lining the pockets of Equinor’s bosses and shareholders, who had already made over £60 billion in profits before tax last year. With £2.8 billion, the UK
Government could instead have fitted insulation and clean heating systems in every house in the North East of Scotland.”
Stopping Rosebank will continue “The fact that it has taken so long for the government to make a decision on Rosebank is testament to the huge amount of public and political opposition to the field over the past months.
“130,000 people signed a petition calling for the UK Government to reject Rosebank, over 200 organisations published an open letter opposing the field, and thousands of letters and emails have been written to politicians, resulting in Rosebank being repeatedly challenged in the Scottish, UK and Norwegian parliaments.
“On top of this, dozens of protests all over the UK, from Shetland to the south of England, have demonstrated the breadth of public opposition to the field’s development. In the days after the decision from the UK Government to approve Rosebank, thousands of people took to the streets across the country, including in Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Glasgow. “The response from the campaign to stop Rosebank has been incredible. Already, our friends at the research and advocacy organisation Uplift have announced that they will take the government to court over their decision to approve Rosebank.
“Equinor is already under fire in the Norwegian press and from its own funders, who wrote to the Norwegian Government expressing concerns that Equinor isn’t doing enough to cut emissions. It is highly vulnerable to public opinion and has been known to pull out of unpopular projects in the past. We can and will force them to pull the plug on Rosebank too.
“Join the campaign! Come along to a welcome call to meet others and hear about how you can get involved. You can also find details of the next welcome call on the Stop Rosebank website.”
Developing more renewable energy is one of the current actions of ACE’s Energy Group.