The International Energy Agency, UN International Panel on Climate Change and many other agencies and organisations are clear that there must be no new fossil fuel development if we are to have a fighting chance of reducing carbon emissions to achieve the ‘safe’ level of 1.5C global heating. Yet the UK government is considering approving the UK’s first deep coal mine in 30 years in Cumbria and Shell is trying to get approval for the North Sea ‘Jackdaw’ gas field, 170 miles east of Aberdeen, which the government’s environmental regulator for the offshore fossil fuel industry rejected in 2021.
Claims that the Cumbria coalmine will help supply British-made steel and replace Russian imports do not “stack up”, Extracting more fossil fuels will not help the current energy crisis as new oil and gas projects in the North Sea would take on average 28 years to come into our energy mix, taking us past the government’s own deadlines for when we should be at zero emissions.
Instead of supporting new oil and gas projects, we need the government to provide immediate relief to those pushed into poverty by the rising cost of energy, and a just, green transition including a long term strategy of insulating and renovating homes and investing in reliable, renewable energy sources.
At today’s blockade of the Nustar Clydebank oil terminal by Just Stop Oil activists, Neil Rothnie, a retired offshore oil and gas worker from Glasgow, said: “North Sea oil and gas does not offer energy security. The North Sea oil and gas industry has one priority and it is not the climate crisis. It’s not the future of North Sea oil and gas workers. And it’s certainly not whether the poor can stay warm. If the Government was serious about a just transition, we would be seeing it here in Scotland.”
Sign the Greenpeace petition against the Cumbrian coal mine.
Sign the Friends of the Earth Scotland petition against the Jackdaw gas field.