As the usual pantomime of political posturing that is Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) proceeded inside the House, climate campaigners pitched up outside parliament. They were there to call on prime minister Keir Starmer’s Labour Party government to finally put a stop to the climate-wrecking Rosebank fossil fuel project.
Rosebank: a climate disaster struck down in the courts
Campaigners have previously estimated that the enormous Rosebank project – situated off the coast of Shetland in the North Sea – will produce over 500m barrels of oil over its lifetime. This would equate to the annual greenhouse gas emissions of the 28 lowest-income countries combined.
In September 2023, the UK’s oil and gas regulator, the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA), granted the license for Equinor and Ithaca Energy to develop the notorious Rosebank oil and gas field.
So, in December 2023, Greenpeace and campaign group Uplift launched judicial reviews against the government over Rosebank. Crucially, this sought to overturn the government’s decision to greenlight the Rosebank project.
And overturn this it did. In January, the Court of Session in Edinburgh sided with the climate campaigners. It ruled that the decision to permit Rosebank was indeed unlawful. Notably, this was because the companies overseeing it hadn’t taken into account its downstream emissions – those from combustion of the oil and gas it would produce.
This means that the ultimate decision over Rosebank now sits with the government. It’s why climate campaigners have now set off a weekly round of action to call on it to ditch the destructive project indefinitely.
PMQs gets the Fossil Free London treatment
On Wednesday 5 March, campaigners from Fossil Free London set up shop outside Parliament. While politicians grilled the prime minister in PMQs, Fossil Free London were there to hold Starmer’s feet to the fire over Rosebank.
Protesters raised placards with the common sense arguments to reject the project:
Some of these revolved around the simple fact that the project would do nothing to lower people’s energy bills. This is because the international energy market means that most of its oil will end up exported elsewhere. Therefore, it won’t meet demand in the UK and bring down prices.
Instead then, the project is a boon for Big Oil, because it’s Equinor and Ithaca that will profit from it:
One protester held up the Labour Party’s rose logo dripping with oil:
Roses are red, but Labour’s are (Tory) blue…
While the courts were clear on the project’s unlawfulness, what the Labour Party government will now do is far from certain.
Technically, the government’s manifesto promise to end new oil and gas licenses wouldn’t automatically extend to Rosebank. This is because there’s a catch. Specifically, it doesn’t apply to projects the previous Conservative government had already permitted. Now, although the courts have ruled its environmental permits null and void legally speaking, it doesn’t mean that Labour won’t still use this gaping loophole to let Equinor and Ithaca pursue the project.
What’s more, as the Canary has pointed out before, Labour has repeatedly openly assured the two fossil fuel supermajors that it’d facilitate Rosebank.
First, in September 2023, Starmer committed to honour the licences for it from the Conservative government if Labour were elected.
Then, at the Labour Party conference in October that year, shadow decarbonisation minister Sarah Jones confirmed this again during a fringe event that fossil fuel-packed industry body Offshore Energy UK (OEUK) had sponsored. Crucially, OEUK had lobbied for the Rosebank project.
It’s little wonder then that the government is now split over this. As the Guardian reported in February, there’s division between energy secretary Ed Miliband, and chancellor Rachel Reeves over the way forward. As it reported:
The energy secretary, Ed Miliband, has previously described the licence issued to Rosebank as “climate vandalism” – setting up a potential major clash between his department and the Treasury.
Reeves is understood to be supportive of a new application for environmental consent, with allies suggesting that would not violate Labour’s manifesto, which promised not to issue new exploration licences, but not to cancel ones that have already been issued.
Now then, only time will tell whether the Labour government will heed the repeated recommendation of its independent advisory body the Climate Change Committee that no new oil and gas is needed. And more to the point, whether it will recognise the Rosebank North Sea project should be included in this.
In the meantime, Fossil Free London will continue holding Keir Starmer’s feet to the fire outside Parliament. From now on, they plan to turn up every week during PMQs until he delivers on ditching Rosebank for good.
Featured image and additional images via Fossil Free London
