More than 200 organisations, including the Women’s Institute, have joined celebrities and climate campaigners to oppose plans to develop the Rosebank oilfield off Shetland.
They have written an open letter to prime minister Rishi Sunak arguing that Rosebank would have a devastating impact on the climate.
The signatories include comedians Frankie Boyle and Aisling Bea, popstar Aurora and climate activist Vanessa Nakate, along with organisations, such as Cafod, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, Oxfam, RSPB, the Wildlife Trusts and WWF.
They also criticise the investment allowance, introduced as part of the windfall tax, which gave oil and gas companies 91% tax relief on investments.
This means the UK public would carry almost all the costs of developing Rosebank, the signatories said. The would-be operator, the Norwegian owned company, Equinor, would receive more than £500m in tax breaks if the field were developed, they said.
In a YouGov poll this month, 70% of people disagreed with the investment allowance policy and 47% strongly disagreed. 10% thought taxpayers should help finance new drilling.
The Rosebank field is the UK’s largest undeveloped oil and gas field and is three times larger than the neighbouring Cambo oil field.
The letter said developing Rosebank would “not help UK energy security” or lower prices because its reserve were 90% oil, most of which was likely to be exported.
The signatories said emissions from burning Rosebank’s reserves would equal the combined annual CO2 emissions of the 28 lowest incomes countries in the world.
Frankie Boyle said:
“Approving Rosebank makes no sense. We’re in a climate emergency, renewable energy is so much cheaper, and anyway this is oil for export.
“The only winners would be the oil and gas companies that own these reserves off the Shetland coast.”
Vanessa Nakate said the UK government must refuse permission to develop Rosebank:
“The need to end our global addiction to fossil fuels is crystal clear, yet if the UK government approves Rosebank it will keep pumping out oil until 2051.
“The UK needs to take responsibility, care about people around the world who are already living with the climate crisis and protect young people and generations to come who will have to face the consequences of these decisions.”
Tessa Khan, executive director of the campaign group, Uplift, said the government must end the investment allowance introduced in the windfall tax:
“It is crystal clear from this polling that the public are overwhelmingly against giving billions in state subsidies to oil and gas companies, especially when they are making eye-watering profits.
“The last thing this industry needs is more public handouts and yet that’s what this government is giving them. This cannot be allowed to continue.”
Categories: Opposition, slider
DRILL OR DROP? 
The giant Lothian Pension Fund invests in global oil and gas majors.
The Lothian Pension Fund managers also invest in global tobacco majors, and in widespread Child Labour.
Does the Scottish Government happily approve them both?
Robin Grayson MSc
Geologist adviser to Gtr Manchester Liberal Democrats
Click to access casestudy_japan-tobacco_153205_2021_october_public.pdf
Japan Tobacco has international operations, increasing since its acquisition of UK-based Gallaher in 2007 and sources from around the globe, including Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia. Child labour in the tobacco supply chain is a prevalent problem across the industry and presents significant risks to companies. Comparing Japan Tobacco to its industry peers, we believe that the company sits somewhere in the middle, leaving room to work towards better practices. EOS at Federated Hermes has been engaging with Japan Tobacco since 2008 on a range of issues.
Do the pensioners get a good return from their contributions? Looks very much like it at the moment.
Pension Fund managers are expected to invest on behalf of their clients-the pensioners/to become pensioners-where their money is secure and likely to give a decent return. If pensioners do not like the areas their money is invested in, they can quite easily opt out and opt into alternative investments. “Strangely”, if they do and their pensions suffer as a result, many seem to expect the State ie. other tax payers, to come to their aid.
By the way, child labour in cobalt production is a serious issue. Looks as if EVs are out of the pension funds then? Looking at Tesla dividend history compared to Shell, maybe not a bad thing.
So you actually condone killing off the human race and the ecosystem that is essential to supports,it including other animals? Well done you. No amount of petty arguments such as you put forward will ever be enough to acquit you and the oil and gas indstry from ecocide and mass genocide.
Multi-Millionaire Frankie Boyle says approving Rosebank makes NO sense, Hahaha… ‘What a Comedian’!!
I’ll tell the jokes Frankie…
Oh dear CJR. Is that really the best you can do? How many birds are minced by wind turbines? Yet I have seen with my own eyes on this very site an Independent Journalist waxing lyrical about buzzards and butterflies flitting about an oil exploration site. I suspect it was to imply they might be displaced, although no sign of that from existing UK on shore production sites.
I also seem to remember there was a lot of anxiety about birds being minced off the coast of??? Scotland! With subsidies available for the mincing.
You actually condone what I am supposed to be condoning as you type away upon your plastic keyboard. You condone child labour for cobalt extraction? You condone the exploitation for rare minerals in Greenland, the Arctic and the Oceans to fuel the brave new world?
Every natural disaster I view or read about, there is the equipment fueled by fossil fuel to rescue and rebuild. Saving lives of people and animals, whilst a few odd activists try and lay the blame for the natural disaster at whatever suits their agenda.
World population still increasing, CJR! That is the biggest issue for ecosystems and other animals. Forests being cleared to grow crops for food? Not always, increasingly to plonk into fuel tanks to replace the demon fossil fuel. Those who still suffer starvation would be outraged, if they were allowed a voice.
What I am actually condoning, rather than what you assume, is that those who want to secure their old age are allowed to decide for themselves what to do with their money. Otherwise, when the effluent hits the fan those trying to control that, politicians or activists, or Maxwell, are long gone, and those wanting their pension are left holding what is left of their nest egg. (In the case of the Lib Dems, long gone after each General Election when the protest vote has evaporated.)Avoid tea also seems to be the current doctrine. Avoid Scotch Whisky? Hmm, lots of evil from that, so suppose so.
Problem becomes, what humanity desires and is willing to fund creating investment opportunities for individuals and groups, such as pensioners, always attracts those who are anti. Fine, let them be anti and make their own choices. Even better, let all make their own choices, which should be the case for pensions in the UK currently, and that should not be the plaything of anyone else, otherwise Cash for Ash is there as a reminder-plus many others.
Your usual problem, Martin, comprehensible despite the mangled punctuation, is that you seem unable to grasp the validity of any arguments but your own, these proceeding from a very jaundiced view of what motivates humans other than greed.
One or two of your points. Despite your prejudices I can assure you that the ‘antis’, as you are pleased to call them, become so as a result of a perceived wrong. In my own case it was the ludicrous arguments of those advocating the evil of fracking in order to secure their profits. They started by denying global heating and downplaying or denying fracking’s demonstrable ill effects. When these arguments could no longer be advocated as people’s awareness and innate altruism developed, they turned to the risible –
population growth alone was responsible for the planet’s problems;
fossil fuels were essential to ease the transition and save the planet;
the industry’s beneficence in allocating peanuts to the funds for decarbonisation sprang from a purely altruistic concern for the common good;
those objecting to their mendacity were hypocrites orgiastically embracing their plastic keyboards etc. when so many alternatives were available, or were fools ignorant of the blessings the FF industry had bestowed upon humanity in the past;
importing fossil fuels – so much more expensive than the home-grown variety – was depriving decarbonisation and renewables of the necessary funding;
disseminating overtly or covertly by insinuation the lie that those opposed to further FF exploration and exploitation are ipso facto willing to condone the abuses and corruption of the renewable sector.
(And we thought Putin had the monopoly of twisting facts to his own ends! Who invaded whom? Who was knowingly responsible for the acceleration of global heating?)
The “antis”, Martin, are not a sub-species of humanity, they are individuals consciously and honourably addressing a particular wrong. As so many of these wrongs are related, and the result of devotion to a particular political creed, your perception of the nature and origins of anti-ism are perhaps understandable, until, that is, one thinks. In any case, Martin, is it not you who, in your definition, are the “anti”, resolutely opposed to the facts of global heating and its causes?
The choice your “investors” make, Martin, cannot be assumed to be free in all cases. If they choose to invest in FFs believing, after due diligence, that they are both harmless and profitable, then perhaps we as a society should be more lenient towards them when funds collapse than to those who invest knowing but careless of their evil.
CJR has a point, Martin. What do you think should be done to reduce the number of human beings on the planet? And when you’ve done that, how quickly do you think global heating will be reversed?
[Typo corrected at poster’s request]
Nope, 1720, CJR raised a totally different issue to the thread Robin had started and I responded to. That is your usual problem. You have a wish to debate something different to the thread, usually your political agenda, and then want to belittle those that don’t play your game. You now claim to know what the motivation for all antis is. Once a teacher, now God, previously aware of what the deceased would have decided had they lived. All even though you have previously admitted you know little about the fossil fuel industry you have now become an instant expert. Yep, an activist through and through.
Your construction of your text is as disjointed as your argument but you attempt to discredit my punctuation. However, as you previously were not able to correctly define what a fact was, then both the teacher label (hopefully) and the God label (definitely) are not appropriate. Additionally, I recall you have previously posted fossil fuels will be required for the transition, so is white the new black? Those responsible for transition have actually quite clearly indicated that fossil fuels will be required well after Net Zero.
Nope, I am not the anti. By definition I am one of the vast majority of the world’s population who use fossil fuels, but unlike a small group who do the same thing, do not whinge that I only do so because I am forced to do so. I am not, but I do, and I feel no guilt. You can ask for absolution from your guilt, 1720, but I don’t perceive any guilt so I don’t.
Your depriving funding argument is absolute nonsense. The examples of projects like the Swansea Lagoon show that clearly. Money is available for things, there is no shortage of money in the world. If there is, more is printed. Try making a case that the projects are viable, and the money will be provided. However, be careful because the transition is already far too full of projects that failed, not due to a shortage of money, but because they were bad projects. Goodness, the Mayor of London-one of the richest cities in the world-has just found money to provide free school lunches to all. Tarquin will be able to fill his tummy at school and not bother the au pair to knock up a souffle when he gets home to Kensington! All to avoid “embarrassment” of not being as well off as someone else. If money can be found for that, then there is indeed a lot of it sloshing about. What next? Top of the range trainers for all kids?
Getting back to the original thread:
So, after due diligence, how does anyone innocently invest in EVs?? Most renewable technology?? Perhaps they are careless of their evil? Invest in coal? Hmm, would that be coal used without CCS or that used with? Invest in nuclear? Steel? Trains? Planes? Agriculture? Tea? Banks?
Doesn’t appear to be a lot left to build a pension. So, my point was, and is that for those who wish to ease their guilt, they can always create their own pension, reflecting their own guilt. For those that don’t they should at least expect someone who may be doing so for them to know the price of oil, and what is likely to happen to it within the period their pension may pay out. If it was shown a short time after being stranded that it was actually galloping away at a rate of knots, then it is the pensioner who has their life impacted. Not an activist. Not the “expert” who got it wrong.
For such a leftie, 1720, you show an alarming tendency to mirror the ancient lord of the manor! Now you want to penalize the pensioner if they haven’t invested as you would like . Chuck them out of their cottage if they don’t vote for you?
An interesting rant! Less as a contribution to any debate you may imagine is taking place or as an answer to anything at all, than for what it tells us about your alternative reality., shared by the FF industry.
Let the reader beware!
Who invaded whom?
You still want to debate something else, 1720? I can understand why but yet to understand why you think this is the forum to do so. Unless you want to explain how such events are somehow separate to energy security. Even that one should be reserved for a fictional forum.
Maybe you and CJR could do the discussion you want, but the thread I was following was the one about pensions.
Let the pensioner beware. Remember Maxwell.
What it tells you is the correct grammar, by the way. No need for the manufactured comfort blanket.
Were I to believe that you were capable of debate, Martin, I should be delighted. Sadly however, your inability to respond adequately, or at all, to points relevant to a website entitled Drill or Drop, as well as your difficulties in conveying a sensible or comprehensible message (v. your last two paragraphs), render this improbable.
It seems that your posts are primarily intended to pervert and divert from the only essential facts, to wit, that we are by paucity and inadequacy of action accepting that the planet is in flames in myriad ways as a result of our activities while you waffle on about pensions. Time to grow up.
I believe Robin started the thread about pensions, 1720. Paul is the moderator of debate on this site. He does a difficult job but it is his to do. Not sure there is a need for another. Additionally, the subject of pension funds has been a topic for previous debate on DoD, so the thread is well established, even though IMHO it is a bit of a red herring as individuals now how the ability to chose their pension pots, if they so wish. Until you have your way.
I can respond to many points, 1720. However, some of the points are not worth responding to, others I believe are. I even respond to pretty inane points where posters reckon they could predict what someone would think if they had lived longer. I even make the effort to do so politely, otherwise Paul would moderate the (maybe) more appropriate retort to a God complex.
Not to worry, someday, someone will respond to all the points you want to debate. Meanwhile, I will continue to note the one individual who couldn’t correctly define what a fact was has decided what are the essential facts! “Strangely”, the same individual who has a habit of waving the white flag and withdrawing from a discussion when it all goes horribly wrong.
First steps, 1720, then the more complicated stuff. I was only telling my 2 year old grandson about that yesterday, although he did still charge about and did still fall over. All part of the process.