The next climate summit COP30 takes place from 10-21 November in Belém, Brazil. Given the lack of progress by countries in submitting their national climate plans, the cuts in climate finance by rich countries and the rejection of carbon-cutting measures by the USA and other like-minded states, there is some pessimism about what COP30 can realistically achieve.
But the global transition to clean energy is still continuing with investment in the electricity sector expected to be 50% more than the amount spent on fossil fuels in 2025, and there are governments, businesses, and institutions that are committed to action. The conference could provide a rallying force in a difficult geopolitical context.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres says that it is now inevitable that humanity will overshoot the 1.5 degree target advocated in the Paris climate agreement, with devastating consequences for the world. He urges world leaders to realise that the longer they delay cutting emissions (which requires a halt to all new fossil fuel development), the greater the danger of reaching catastrophic “tipping points” in the Amazon, the Arctic and the oceans, making the situation yet worse.
It is therefore concerning that the UK’s largest undeveloped oilfield may soon be approved by Ed Miliband, Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero. The Rosebank field, lying north-west of Shetland, was ruled unlawful in February this year by Scotland’s Court of Session, because it had not accounted for the carbon emissions caused by burning the oil that the field would extract.
Rosebank’s developers have now produced a new Environmental Impact Assessment stating that the field would release nearly 250 million tonnes of greenhouse gases from burning the fossil fuel extracted, equal to two thirds of the UK’s annual greenhouse gas emissions in 2024. Total Rosebank emissions are now predicted to be more than fifty times the amount originally proposed for the development of the field alone. The government’s public consultation efforts on Rosefield appear to be limited to notices in the Shetland Times, Press & Journal and Daily Telegraph.
Click here for six reasons to stop Rosefeld. You can petition Prime Minister Keir Starmer to halt the Rosebank oilfield here. Or contact the Prime Minister’s office here and Ed Miliband’s office here.