Hundreds of people are expected to join marches across the UK this weekend as part of a global call for a rapid phase out of fossil fuels.
The UK actions will focus on government policy to “max out” North Sea oil and gas reserves, despite warnings that new drilling is incompatible with limiting temperature rise to habitable levels.
Earlier this year, the prime minister announced plans for at least 100 new offshore licences and possibly many more. He also hinted at approval for the controversial Rosebank oil field west of Shetland.
Action is also planned outside Labour central and constituency offices in Ashton-under-Lyne, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Exeter, Leeds, London, Nottingham, Oxford and Swansea
The weekend follows a new United Nations warning that achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions requires the phasing out of fall unabated fossil fuels.
Also this week, a report by Oil Change International found that the UK, together with the US, Canada, Australia and Norway, are responsible for 51% of all planned expansion from new oil and gas fields up to 2050.
Stop Rosebank campaigner, Lauren MacDonald, said:
“We are now watching the climate crisis unfold, whether its rising temperatures and wildfires or the heating up of our seas, and yet our government is choosing to throw more fuel on the fire.
“We know – and they know – there can be no new drilling if we want a habitable world and yet they are issuing new licences and considering approving the massive Rosebank oil field, which would create more CO2 emissions than 28 of the poorest countries produce in a year combined.
“Rishi Sunak needs to stop bowing to the demands of the oil and gas companies that are raking in obscene profits while millions in this country can’t afford to heat their homes.
“Unlike cheaper renewable energy, new oil and gas fields will not lower bills, it just keeps the industry’s obscene profits flowing.
“Climate leadership today means standing up to this profiteering and stopping all new drilling. Anything less is simply not good enough. Fossil fuels are the biggest contributor to the climate crisis yet they’re the one thing governments have so far resisted acting on.”
Events
More than 30 events over three days are planned throughout the UK. Across the world, more than 400 demonstrations are expected, including Cape Town, Tokyo, Karachi and New York.
Friday 15 September
Ashton-under-Lyne: Action outside the offices of Labour deputy leader, Angela Rayler MP, Ashton Market Hall, Market Street, Ashton-under-Lyne OL6 7JU, 10am-12 noon
Bradford: Fossil Free vigil, outside West Yorkshire Pension Fund, 4 Godwin Street, Bradford BD1 2ST, 12 noon-2pm
Bristol: Action outside the offices of Labour’s Thangham Debbonaire MP, College Green, College Street, Bristol BS1 5TR, 10am-12 noon
Cardiff: Action outside the offices of Jo Stevens MP, The Globe Centre, Wellfield Road, Cardiff CF24 3PE, 4pm-6pm
Edinburgh: Action outside the offices of Labour’s Ian Murray, Minto Street, Edinburgh EH9 2BT, 1.30pm-3.30pm
Exeter: Action outside the offices of Labour’s Ben Bradshaw, Bedford Square, Bedford Street, Exeter EX1 1LR, 1.30pm-3.30pm
Glasgow: Art workshop and singing let by Divest Strathclyde, Quaker Meeting House, 38 Elmbank Crescent, Glasgow G2 4PS, 6pm-8pm
Glastonbury Tor: Dusk No New Oil message to prime minister, Wellhouse Lane, Glastonbury BA6 8BJ, 6pm-8pm
Leeds: Action outside the office of shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves MP, 8a Bramley Centre, Bramley, Leeds LS13 2ET, 12 noon-2pm
London: Action outside the Labour Party headquarters, 160 Blackfriars Road, London SE1 8EZ, 5.30pm-7.30pm
London: Action outside offices of Labour’s Helen Hayes MP, 264 Rosendale Road, London SE24 9DL, 5.30pm-7.30pm
Manchester: Action calling for the insurer Chubb to not insure the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline, Chubb, Abbey House, M2 4AB, from 8-11am
Manchester: Vigil for lives lost to climate breakdown and call for Greater Manchester Pension Fund to divest from fossil fuels, Guardsman Tony Downes House, GMPF headquarters, Droylsden, Manchester M43 7UH, 9.30am-11.30am
Norwich: Protest against continued investment in fossil fuels by Barclays Bank, outside Barclays Bank, Red Lion Street, Norwich NR1 3QH, 10am-12 noon
Nottingham: Action outside offices of Alex Norris MP, Main Street, Bulwell, Nottingham NG6 8QD, 3.30pm-5.30pm
Oxford: Action outside the offices of Labour’s Annelise Dodds MP, Unit A, Bishops Mews, Transport Way, Cowley, Oxford OX4 6HD, 1pm-3pm
Swansea: Action outside offices of Carolyn Harris MP, 485 Llangyfelach Road, Brynhyfryd, Swansea SA4 9EA, 2pm-4pm
Ullapool: Meeting at the Clock Tower, Ullapool, 9am to demand an end to reliance on fossil fuels
Wrexham: March to protest about HSBC’s funding of fossil fuels, gather at Miners’ Statue, Lord Street, Wrexham and march to HSBC bank, Regent Street, Wrexham LL11 1RN, 11am-1pm
Saturday 16 September
Edinburgh: march to The Mound 11am- 1pm
Leeds: Rally for just transition phase out of fossil fuels, Briggate, Leeds LS1 6HF, 12 noon-2pm
Leicester: Parents for Future Leicestershire meeting outside offices of Alberto Costa MP, Unit 3, 8a Lutterworth Road, Blaby, Leicester LE8 4DN, 12.30pm-2.30pm
London: March to Parliament. Gather at 12 noon at Grosvenor Gardens, near Victoria Station, London, followed by march, 12 noon-2pm
Oxford: Outreach stall by No New Oil and Mothers Rebellion, Cornmarket, Cornmarket Street, Oxford OX1 3HL, 1pm-3pm
Plymouth: Rally at Guildhall Square, Armada Way, Plymouth PL1 1DA, 12-2pm
Wimborne: XR action against fossil fuels on the High Street, Wimborne, Dorset, from 10.30-12.30pm
Sunday 17 September
Bournemouth: March from Pier Approach to Boscombe Pier at 11am, followed by a rally until 1pm
Brighton: Mothers Rebellion action, outside Jubilee Library, Jubilee Square, Brighton BN1 1GE, 12:30pm-2pm
Cambridge: Protest Picnic, The Mill Pond, King’s Parade, Upper Flat, Cambridge CB2 1SJ, 4pm-6pm
Ilkley: Care-Free Festival, The Grove, Ilkley, 11am-4pm
London: Mothers’ Rebellion protest outside the Science Museum, Exhibition Road, London SW7 2DD, 11.30am-1.30pm
London: Protest song concert, Glengall Wharf Garden, 64 Glengall Road, London SE15 6NH, 6pm-8pm
South Shields: Mothers’ Rebellion Circle raising awareness of Divest Tyne and Wear campaign, South Shields Town Hall, South Tyneside NE33 2RL, 11am-1pm
Wimborne: Upside Down action by XR Wimbourne’s Pink Rebels, High Street, Wimborne, 10.30am-12.30pm
York: Mothers’ Rebellion peaceful protest, outside south entrance of York Minister, 11am
Categories: Opposition, slider
DRILL OR DROP? 
Let’s hope they make some arrests
Yes, theirs should be phased out before this winter.
The rest can then enjoy more plentiful supplies which might reduce prices. However, long on preaching and short on practicing is my suspicion.
No new drilling to replace Russian supplies Lauren?? Oh what a thought-except the thinking does not seem to have been done very well. Sorry Ukraine, it would appear that Putin weaponizing of energy supply has a fifth column. Was it Lenin-some say-who defined them some while ago?
It seems to me that they’re protesting in the wrong places. My recommendation would be for them to protest in China and India, who have no intention whatsoever of reducing their standard of living to mediaeval standards by eliminating fossil fuels. It doesn’t make sense to me that we should not use the energy rich fossil fuels under our feet but buy them from other countries who are laughing at our naivety. The simple truth is that we cannot live a modern civilised life without fossil fuels. They are not a luxury. They are a necessity for everything from fertilisers to plastics.
Our children and grandchildren will have their standard of living reduced to medieval standards or maybe worse if governments and the fossil fuel industry don’t stop making excuses and start taking the climate crisis seriously.
Mankind’s biggest advances in standard of living come from scientists identifying great laps forward in the production of cheaper and more reliable energy such as coal replacing whale oil and oil replacing coal. None of them required the authorities to ban anything in order to replace them. It was self evident. Until now. However, wind and solar are intermittent and therefore unreliable and have been shown to be prohibitively expensive as the recent round of bids for offshore acreage has shown. Nuclear is reliable and proven but slow and expensive to implement. Mainly due to regulations. Interestingly we built our first nuclear power station (Calder Hall) in 1956 in less than 4 years. Common sense says use our existing oil and gas while going all out for nuclear with no forced reduction in our standard of living or pensioners having to sit in the cold and dark.
Since when have our children and grandchildren followed what their parents and grandparents have?
Just an excuse for some to try and deflect what they do towards others. Own it-if you want to act in a certain way it is your choice.
What is your excuse Pauline for continuing to drive the demand? The fossil fuel industry are supplying your demand, amongst others.
There will be few children and grandchildren without the food being produced to keep them alive. I note NO ONE has even tried to explain how 10 billion are fed without the use of artificial fertilisers. That is not just on DoD but politicians worldwide. I have experience of intensive and extensive agriculture and can make a case for either. What I would not even attempt is the myth that 10B can be fed without intensive agriculture that requires artificial fertilisers. 10B is too many, then? Maybe, but then the children and grandchildren will not exist!
Having seen the absolute twaddle that was spouted around selenium on this site some while ago, any intelligent child or grandchild would simply disown the parents or grandparents, especially when they also inherited a huge debt thanks to those parents and grandparents. I think you will find children and grandchildren may expect to inherit a bit more than bankruptcy.
Are you really so ignorant of what is already happening to the planet? Over 11,000 people dead only this week in Libya and many others with their lives devastated by the flooding there. Wildfires, and droughts resulting in famine, mass starvation and people forced to re locate. Your artificial fertiliser won’t be much good with no water and in temperatures too high for crops to grow. This is just the beginning. Yet you and others like you continue to play word games and point score and defend an industry and governments that couldn’t care less about you.
Pauline, the reason people died in Libya is because two earth dams above the city of Derna had not been maintained for years and were therefore an accident waiting to happen. The mainstream media prefer you not to know that. They want you in a perpetual state of climate fear.
https://www.turbulenttimes.co.uk/news/front-page/climate-change-the-battle-for-derna/
The reality and science of the impact of climate change explained in just 10 minutes. Start at 1-11-50 through to 1-22-05
Thanks John. A great service to us all.
Exactly, Graeme.
[Edited by modertor]
Plastic can be used to gain information rather than spread misinformation.
By the way, Pauline, I have yet to defend governments. Industry that has helped me to keep warm and cook this last winter I will defend. The same industries that are required to rush aid to Libya at this very moment to try and help the poor people there.
Did you return the help the UK oil and gas industry supplied regarding your energy bill? I know some who did the equivalent and either funded their relatives or charity. If you were as fortunate to be able to afford to do the same, well done you. However, millions were not and their idea of future happiness is not to revert to a yurt.
Not sure Mr. Musk cares too much about me as he pockets $billions in remuneration, but good luck to him. Neither do protestors care too much about me when they declare their rights to infringe my rights. With them though, Pauline, if they want to do that they should have the courtesy to avoid fake reality as part of their claim to superior intelligence.
[Edited by moderator] let it be understood that few of those who call for the cessation of new FF development would deny that humanity has benefited from the past exploitation of fossil fuel reserves. Nor do they deny the benefits the invention of plastics has brought humanity. To continue to use these obvious benefits as an argument against further exploitation is criminally disingenuous and mendacious in that it endeavours to conceal the reality which is that the overwhelming conviction amongst reputable scientists is that what was once good for us has become bad for us, that the burning of fossil fuels should be wound down and that new exploitation of fossil fuels should cease in order to release that funding which ensures that alternatives are developed in such a way as to ensure that the immediate beneficiaries of these developments should be those people disadvantaged by their having been denied the advantages which fossil fuels have afforded the developed world.
Few are foolish enough to believe that this process will be painless or smooth, but similarly, few can deny that the goal is good and that until we can all agree on this, there is little hope of persuading those who are in control of the planet, the FF industry and their compliant media and politicians, that industry, labour, has a purpose other than the obscene enrichment of those in charge of it, and that the democratic consensus accepts this.
Arguments urging us to resist a return to the pre-industrial age, which is said will be the result of a refusal to continue to develop FF resources, should be seen for what they are, a cynical and self-interested attempt to maintain the suicidal and ecocidal status quo, and not, I repeat not symptomatic of a concern for the common good of humanity.
Far be it from me to tell the usual culprits what to think, but I do urge them to think. It is their duty to think and not swallow wholesale what they are told to think. Those who point to evidence at variance with the opinions (or at least the statements) of those who would prescribe our opinions by redefining the truth are not themselves telling us what to think. They are highlighting the existence of a moral order itself at variance with such manipulation. The “group think” argument so frequently mentioned in these postings is not wrong (except in so far as it stipulates thought), it is simply misdirected at those who do think rather than the apathetic. {Edited by moderator]
Taking cover behind arguments over relative emissions and dependent costs; adducing faux compassion for those who will starve if we do not accept their poisoning through many artificial fertilisers; arguing that industry meets demand and never creates it, are all devices intended to blind us to the ever-more-obvious fact that we have reached a turning point where accepting that the good has gone bad we seek to restore that which we are destroying – a planetary naturally diverse and productive environment which will renew its efforts to support humanity by eradicating inequality and researching energy sources which do not destroy that which they benefit.
[Edited by moderator]
The irony underlying arguments for the protection of our standard of living through the continuing development of FFs whilst these same FFs are increasingly destroying our standard of living is an irony, or rather a nonsense, which escapes the blinkered.
If one believes that there is an objective truth, one owes it to oneself and to others to fight for it. Silence is compliance.
Knowing what a fact is leads to the truth, 1720.
[Edited by moderator]
Driving the demand is hypocrisy. Fossil fuels are produced to meet a demand. Anyone can research the facts regarding that matter. Other products may be different but you confuse no one by trying to discount the facts of that particular matter. [Edited by moderator]
Sorry the argument defeated your powers of comprehension, Martin. The fault might lie with my prolixity for which I apologise. I hope other readers don’t have the same problem.
I do have problems with understanding some of your “arguments” 1720. Simply because they are made strewn with errors of fact, lack of knowledge about so many areas, and incoherent.
If other readers don’t have the same problems they should do their own research. They may note the confusion, just for one instance, in respect of demand, and wonder why fossil fuel companies rarely advertise to drive consumption, apart from some fairly small levels of brand promotion. Once they wonder, 1720, they can determine why and find it is not necessary as there are so many individuals who deny their addiction in self righteous frenzies whilst consuming their products. They may note that OPEC+ spend more of their time discussing how to reduce supply-so they make more from those self righteous frenzies.
Your strange oxymoron about those denied the advantages also is somewhat comical when viewed against your previous comments regarding Mozambique.
It is your prerogative to post as if the readers are not aware of such basic facts, and some would appear to be in such ignorance, but I will continue to respect that the majority should be aware of reality and will post accordingly.
Interesting that the “something must be done” now incorporates being unable to heat AND eat. That should reduce demand!
🤣 WRONG again MARTIN ,
However many times you try and spin the facts , the readers and there the ones that matter know the TRUTH .
please , please ,PLEASE give JACK another golden opportunity to prove you wrong on every front concerning the dangers of Fracking ..
100th + time I ask again, when can we discuss the toxic , environmental dangers of Fracking ?????? When can we talk about Fracking and THE DIRTY DOZEN ????????
Well , I’m stilllllllllll waiting