Tomorrow the Court of Session in Edinburgh will begin a three-day deliberation on an application to stop the development of the Rosebank oilfield. The case, brought by two environmental charities, Uplift and Greenpeace, argues that the UK government acted unlawfully last year in granting a license without considering the effects on our climate of burning the oil and gas extracted from the field.
The Rosebank field lies 80 miles off the northwest of Shetland, and it is by some measure the biggest ever to be discovered in the North Sea. This week’s legal move is the latest in a series – both in the UK and abroad – which has seen the courts take an increasingly robust attitude on the environmental impact of new drilling. For the sake of the planet, we must hope it is successful.
At school in the 70s, we were told that the biggest threat to human survival was that oil and gas would run out. Economic infrastructure would collapse as finite supplies dried up. Famine and global conflict would be the consequence.
But as the century turned it became clear this was bollocks. In fact, there was a new reality. Not that we would run out of fossil fuels, but that the atmosphere couldn’t afford for us to burn them. To survive we would have to leave them in the ground.
That’s a hard message. One that still has not been absorbed by many. In particular those who have got rich from the exploitation of hydrocarbons. It is, as Al Gore observed, the ultimate inconvenient truth.
But truth it is. For millennia humanity thrived on this planet. The earth existed in an organic equilibrium. Carbon was oxidised through fire and decay, and then extracted from the atmosphere and reconstituted into living matter through the phenomenon of photosynthesis. But in the last hundred or so year we have destroyed that balance as carbon gases have been pumped into the air at unprecedented levels, principally by burning oil and gas.
As result the ability of our atmosphere to protect the planet from radiation has been compromised and the earth has become warmer. This in turn has seen sea levels rise as the icecaps melt and dramatic disturbance to weather systems. Climate change is already killing many thousands of people every year, the latest victims in Florida and Valencia. If the process continues that becomes millions and the very existence of our species will be in doubt.
This is the context in which the future of our oil and gas industry must be planned. The only plan that is compatible with survival is to stop. The only future that works is a managed decline and replacement of fossil fuels with clean renewable energy from the elements.
None of this is even that contentious anymore. The science behind understanding climate change and the role of carbon emissions in it is universally accepted. Well, perhaps not in the new White House. And yet the world seems capable of knowing that it is on a path to destruction whilst equally incapable of getting off it.
The oil companies have a vested interest. They are the last people who should be anywhere near energy policy. Governments are meant to take a wider view. On paper UK policy is clear. The legislation is in place. We need to phase out oil and gas. That’s official.
Yet, this time last year, then PM Rishi Sunak announced over 100 new licenses for oil and gas exploration and extraction in the North Sea. Rosebank sits at the top of that list.
The government turns logic and common sense on its head. It claims you can phase out something by having more of it. Any number of falsehoods are marshalled to bolster this deception. They claim that Rosebank will make UK energy supplies more secure. Not true, 90% of its output will go for sale abroad and never be used in the UK. They claim it will bring down bills and help with the cost of living. Not true, Rosebank oil will be sold on the international market where prices are rigged by a cartel of producers. And it is far more expensive than renewables.
The SNP opposed Sunak’s bonanza and believes there should be no new extraction in the North Sea unless compatible with net zero targets – something it would be impossible for Rosebank to achieve. Last year Labour too said they would oppose any new licenses but adopted the bizarre policy of not reversing any already agreed. That provided a powerful incentive for the Tories to push through massive expansion in the year before the election.
The new UK government has got itself in a weird position now. It has said it believes that the licensing of Rosebank was unlawful by not taking climate effects into account and it will not therefore contest the court action. But bizarrely, it will not reverse Sunak’s decision. It seems it will be up to campaigners and the Scottish courts to do the job for them.
All of this begs a bigger question. Why is it that the Scottish government can issue licenses for onshore energy production in Scotland, but not offshore? Independence means that control over the exploitation of Scottish waters would lie in Scotland, but even whilst that it being debated there is an overwhelmingly case for these licensing decisions to be devolved. If they had been, I’m pretty sure tomorrow’s court case would not be necessary.