Campaigners take part in a Stop Rosebank emergency protest outside the U.K. Government building in Edinburgh, after the controversial Equinor Rosebank North Sea oil field was given the go-ahead Wednesday, September 27, 2023. (Photo: Jane Barlow/PA Images via Getty Images)
ROSEBANK owner Equinor have once again posted billions in profits – to the fury of climate campaigners.
The Norwegian fossil giant – which has the controlling stake in the huge oil field development in the North Sea – posted profits of £6.6 billion for the past three months.
Environmental campaigners said the firm was adding “insult to injury” with its huge profits as parts of Scotland continue to suffer from extreme weather caused by climate breakdown.
Last week, Storm Babet caused flooding that hit towns across north-east Scotland, with some evacuated residents in Angus told they would not be back in their homes by Christmas.
In September, the UK Government gave the green light for the Rosebank development to go ahead, despite fury from campaigners and across the political spectrum.
The field, which lies north-west of Shetland, contains up to 350 million barrels of oil and is expected to be in operation for decades.
Health Professionals associated with Just Stop Oil protests at the Natural History Museum 26 Oct 2023.
Two senior medical professionals have painted a dinosaur at the Natural History Museum in London. They are demanding the government halt all new oil and gas projects in the UK and are calling on health professionals and the public to march in London from the 30th October to campaign for this.
This afternoon Will Stableforth, a consultant gastroenterologist and Steve Fay, a senior physiotherapist, used a children’s powder-paint fountain to cover a reproduction Titanosaur skeleton in orange cornstarch. The two then displayed a banner which read ‘For health’s sake- Just Stop Oil.’ The two then sat and waited for police to arrive. Fifteen officers have attended the scene and arrested both men.
Speaking before the action, Will Stableforth from Truro, in Cornwall, said
“As an NHS medical consultant I’ve spent many years looking after patients with diseases which, at their root, are caused by fossil fuels. I have done everything legal I can to get our message across. Most of that has been ineffective; so it’s time to break the law. I cannot see another way at this time.”
“The climate crisis is a healthcare emergency for every single one of us. We demand an end to any new fossil fuels and immediate climate action prioritising public health rather than big business.”
This morning, over 200 health journals from around the world, have urged the World Health Organization to declare the deadly climate and nature crises as a global health emergency. The journals have come together to simultaneously publish an editorial calling on world leaders and health professionals to treat the climate and and nature crises as one indivisible crisis that must be tackled together in order to preserve health and avoid catastrophe.
Just Stop Oil delivers an open letter to the Metropolitan Police urging them to prosecute politician climate criminals and to investigate others. Image: Just Stop Oil assumed.
Climate activist group Just Stop Oil have delivered an open letter to the Metropolitan Police calling for the prosecution of politician climate criminals.
Just Stop Oil supporters will remain in civil resistance until you prosecute the criminals responsible for crimes against humanity and acts of genocide
The facts are clear. New oil and gas licensing in 2023 will kill hundreds of millions of people, adding to the already mounting global death toll from climate breakdown. It will push our climate, oceans and the living world beyond the point of no return, triggering runaway global heating and setting in motion an unstoppable process of global societal collapse. To know these facts and still encourage drilling for UK new oil and gas is reckless and immoral. There can be no greater crime.
Of course, the politicians planning to max out the UK’s oil and gas reserves are not directly seeking mass death, neither are those executives signing off on plans to drill for new oil and gas or finance and insure new oil exploration. The primary aim of their support for fossil fuels is profit and power. To them, it’s an inconvenient side effect that millions and eventually billions of people will die when carbon emissions from new oil and gas cause heat waves, drought and crop failure.
But under International Criminal Law, this is no mere side effect: it is murder by oblique intent. Under Article 30 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, death or harm doesn’t have to be a primary intention for someone to be held criminally responsible. They simply have to be ‘aware that it will occur in the ordinary course of events’.
Since 2021 when the International Energy Agency (“IEA”) declared that there could be no new oil, gas or coal if we want an even chance of limiting global temperature rise in line with the Paris Agreement, it has been abundantly clear that new oil and gas will lead to mass death.
In 2022 you received a dossier of evidence requesting you investigate and charge five top British politicians for crimes against humanity and genocide. You have declined to do so.
We say to you now that you already have all the evidence you need to prosecute those politicians and to launch an investigation into those executives signing off on plans to drill for new oil and gas or to finance and insure new oil exploration. If you are uncertain who they are, Just Stop Oil will be publishing a list on Sunday 29th October to assist in your enquiries.
Failure to act will force Just Stop Oil into full non-compliance with the police and judicial system and we will remain in civil resistance until such time as you launch an investigation and bring charges.
As Metropolitan Police Commissioner you promised to police “without favour or prejudice”. We are asking you now to uphold your oath and uphold the law: it is a matter of life and death.
This letter by Clare Farrell, Gail Bradbrook and Roger Hallam was published on 19th October 2023 on the Extinction Rebellion website – the original can be found here https://rebellion.global/blog/2023/10/19/reflections-5-years-on/
Telling the truth means being ready to accept when you have been led astray, got things wrong and so have to modify your views. Five years since the launch of Extinction Rebellion, this world we live in is changing so dangerously fast that it demands we revisit our assumptions and learn some painful lessons. It is now clear that 2023 is very likely to average more than 1.5 °C above a 1850-1900 baseline. Whilst emissions are still rising world wide. It is only through commitment to the truth that we might help humanity and wider life around as we enter a disturbing new era.
We got something wrong. We were misled. So, we misled you too. Aerosol pollution matters decisively to our global climate. There are other factors deserving of more serious attention such as forest cloud seeding and ocean health. Many factors were sidelined by scientists who were narrowly focusing on CO2. In addition, IPCC processes did not find an adequate way to address issues of extreme risk where data was deemed insufficient or where there was higher uncertainty *, such as aerosols, methane release from permafrost, and feedbacks from wildfires or droughts rendering sinks incapable of sustaining their role in the system. This misled other scientists, academics and activists including us.
Some of us have attempted over the years to responsibly communicate the extreme and cascading risks, and the severe consequences of not taking emergency action. Despite founding the movement on the precautionary principle we found ourselves being ground down. For years we were moderated, and moodsplained by experts from narrow disciplines who demanded we change our press releases, our lectures, and play down the reality and potential speed of catastrophic consequences. As we pass into the horrors of a 1.5 °C plus world, at least 10 years earlier than the worst official expectations, we realise we should have made a firmer stand. As we observe some top climatologists claiming we need to wait decades before accepting that the planet is 1.5 °C warmer, we also realise that silence about our disagreements is no longer an option for us, or the climate movement.
Understanding how this repression happened is important. We would welcome any career climatologists, academics and journalists who undermined our communications in public to make amends, especially as they have influenced attitudes amongst those who judge us. But more importantly, for the sake of life on Earth we must tackle this emergency with our eyes wide open to everything that we need to do from this point forward. The rapid heating and extreme events of the last year demonstrate that overall predictions of institutionalised climate science were less accurate than the conclusions of generalist scholars and leading climate activists, who better saw the frightening signals through the noise produced from siloes, hierarchies, and privilege. Notably, economists, politicians and consultants pulled the conversation in the opposite direction to what was needed. Because these people carry an identity associated with ‘authority’ they were not challenged enough by journalists, lay people, or activists.
XR was always about responding to the whole ecological emergency, not just the climate. We need to bring this back to the fore, as much for the climate as for nature. We need to prioritise preserving and growing forest cover, learning how to restore the oceans’ role in atmospheric modulation, experimenting with marine cloud brightening in the Arctic and exploring every option for climate restoration and cooling, and even consider reversing recent shipping fuel regulations if they are causing an aerosol ‘termination shock’. And at the same time we must reject the lie that high consumption societies do not need to power down equitably, with the rich going first. We waste vast amounts of energy, which is unspeakable in these circumstances. The rallying cry from here on is that we Must Stop Oil, end the fossil fuel era, and we must also urgently start the repair of Planet Earth, our only home.
We are entering a new era for humanity and the prospects are terrifying. We committed five years ago in October 2018 to live in truth. Our movements need to look directly at that truth and act according to reality. That means being in resistance, standing for peace, justice and freedom.
Signed: Clare Farrell, Gail Bradbrook, Roger Hallam.
October 2023
*A footnote in the IPCC AR6 SPM: “Warming levels >4 °C may result from very high emissions scenarios, but can also occur from lower emission scenarios if climate sensitivity or carbon cycle feedbacks are higher than the best estimate. {3.1.1}”
JSO Wellington Arch action 25 Oct 23. Image Denise Laura Baker.
Three Just Stop Oil supporters have painted the Wellington Arch near Hyde Park Corner to demand the UK government immediately halt all new oil and gas projects and to call on the public to march in London from 29th October.
At approximately 10:15 this morning, three Just Stop Oil supporters set off smoke flares and sprayed orange paint on the Wellington Arch, using fire extinguishers. They then displayed banners reading ‘Just Stop Oil’ and waited for police to arrive and arrest them.
One of those taking action this morning is Joshua Lane, 26, an engineer from Sheffield. He said:
“I am compelled to take action due to the severity, and sheer emergency we find ourselves in today. Future generations live in uncertainty, and we are given false promises time after time by endless pantomime governments. Humanity faces the biggest crisis in history, and yet the government continuously ignores the facts, and only thinks of themselves and the billionaire oil barons they serve. One thing that cannot be ignored is the power of ordinary people, and our voices are only continuing to grow louder.”
Also taking action today was Joe Hogan, 40, from Hertfordshire. He said:
“We are out of time; we have to act now. Not tomorrow, not next year, not 2050; NOW. But our government continues with business-as-usual, burning our futures to enrich their friends, while enacting draconian legislation to stamp out dissent. I refuse to be cowed. Traditional, managed, sanitised forms of protest have done nothing; the only way forward is through sustained, disruptive civil resistance. That’s why I will be marching in London from the 29th October and you should too. Sign up at juststopoil.org“
JSO at Wellington Arch 25 Oct 23. Image Denise Laura Baker
Today’s action comes as extreme weather continues to disrupt the UK, killing at least seven and leaving hundreds homeless after around 1,250 properties have flooded in England. The environment agency has issued more than 300 flood alerts and a new wave of heavy rain could bring flooding and disruption to much of London and southern England according to a fresh Met Office weather warning.
