Scottish Parliament backs moratorium on fracking
Members of the Scottish Parliament have backed an indefinite moratorium on fracking and unconventional oil and gas.
Members of the Scottish Parliament have backed an indefinite moratorium on fracking and unconventional oil and gas.
Friends of the Earth Scotland welcomed this afternoon’s announcement by the Scottish Government to extend indefinitely the moratorium on fracking. But the organisation said it would be pushing for a stronger law.
The Scottish Government has turned its back on jobs and manufacturing with its announcement this afternoon on banning fracking, said INEOS shale in the past few minutes. The industry body, UK Onshore Oil and Gas, said the decision was based on “dogma not evidence or geo-political reality.”
In the past half hour, the Scottish Energy Minister, Paul Wheelhouse, announced to the Scottish Parliament: “Fracking cannot and will not take place in Scotland”.
DrillOrDrop’s October 2017 digest of news about fracking, shale and onshore oil and gas updated daily.
The Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) has changed its policy on fracking and called for a moratorium unless shale gas extraction secures “radical reductions” in carbon emissions.
Narrow roads, problems with waste disposal and a lack of research by regulators make fracking impractical in the UK, according to a campaigner who has secured bans on the process in the US.
Campaigners said more than 40,000 people have called for a ban on fracking in response to the Scottish Government’s consultation which closes just before midnight tonight.
2016 saw the first approvals for high volume hydraulic fracturing in the UK since fracking caused small earthquakes in Lancashire in 2011.
Councillors in Sheffield have voted to ban fracking on land by owned by the city. They also criticised the government’s shale gas policy and backed Labour’s call for a moratorium.