Climate activists from Greenpeace and Uplift during a demonstration outside the Scottish Court of Session, Edinburgh, on the first day of the Rosebank and Jackdaw judicial review hearing, November 12, 2024
STICK to the spirit of Labour’s manifesto commitments, climate campaigners told the Prime Minister as the public consultation on Rosebank closes on Monday.
Stop Climate Chaos Scotland (SCCS) demanded Andy Burnham block proposed new North Sea oil fields, claiming their lifetime carbon emissions could result in up to 65,495 excess heat deaths by the end of this century.
Made up of more than 70 organisations with a total of about one million supporters, SCCS wrote an open letter to Mr Burnham and his Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh ahead of the consultation closure for Rosebank, the largest untapped oil field in the North Sea which lies some 80 miles north-west of Shetland.
A similar exercise for the planned Jackdaw gas field, which lies in waters about 150 miles east of Aberdeen, finished on August 10.
Production for both fields had been approved by the previous Conservative government, but a legal challenge from Greenpeace has now left the current government to decide whether or not drilling should go ahead.
SCCS reminded the new PM, who recently issued a temporary ban on the sale of disposable barbecues and brought in the military to help deal with wildfires, that 2,700 excess deaths were linked to heatwaves in May and June alone.
Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark RichardsDonald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
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Turkish Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Alparslan Bayraktar delivers a speech at Ciragan Palace in Istanbul, Turkiye, on October 30, 2025. [Muhammed Enes Yıldırım – Anadolu Agency]
Turkiye and Saudi Arabia are set to expand their renewable energy cooperation with an additional 3,000-megawatt agreement, bringing the total planned capacity under their projects in Turkiye to 5,000 megawatts, Energy and Natural Resources Minister Alparslan Bayraktar said, Anadolu reports.
Bayraktar recalled that Turkiye and Saudi Arabia had previously signed an agreement covering 2,000 MW of renewable energy projects.
“We will increase this to 5,000 megawatts with a 3,000-megawatt agreement on the sidelines of the UN Climate Conference in Antalya,” said Bayraktar, according to a statement released Saturday by the Energy and Natural Resources Ministry.
The minister also outlined Turkiye’s progress in energy and mining over the past 25 years, saying the country had “almost accomplished a century’s worth of work” under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s leadership.
“Turkiye has quadrupled its installed electricity capacity, from 32,000 megawatts to 126,000 megawatts,” he said, adding that the country had commissioned around 95,000 MW of new capacity over the past 24 years.
Bayraktar said Turkiye now has Europe’s third-largest installed electricity capacity, as well as the third-highest electricity generation and consumption, after France and Germany. He added that oil production had tripled, natural gas production had increased ninefold and mineral exports had risen tenfold. He identified energy independence as a central objective under Turkiye’s “Century of Turkiye” vision.
“We have a fundamental goal: to make Turkiye energy independent in the Century of Turkiye. This is, in a sense, our ultimate goal,” he said.
Natural gas and oil production
Bayraktar said natural gas, which was available in only five provinces in 2002, now reaches all 81 provinces. Turkiye is also expected to deliver natural gas to its 1,000th settlement this year.
Domestic natural gas production in the Black Sea is expected to double this year and quadruple by 2028.
“In 2028, we will meet the natural gas needs of 17 million households with our own gas from the Black Sea,” Bayraktar said.
Regarding oil production in southeastern Turkiye, Bayraktar said output at the Gabar field had exceeded 83,000 barrels per day, with more than 3,500 people working in the area, most of them local residents.
“Gabar is almost a small section, a snippet of what a Terror-Free Turkiye can look like,” he said, arguing that oil production following the removal of terrorism from the region was generating economic activity, employment and development while reducing Turkiye’s energy imports.
Bayraktar also said Turkiye was exploring unconventional oil resources in Diyarbakir and that the area could have production potential two to three times greater than Gabar.
“If we succeed in unconventional production, we will drill hundreds of wells in Diyarbakir,” he said, adding that exploration was currently being conducted across four fields covering about 600 square kilometers (232 square miles), while the broader potential area extends to 7,200 sq km (2,780 sq mi).
Regional energy security amid uncertainty
On regional energy security amid continued uncertainty over the Strait of Hormuz crisis, Bayraktar said the situation could create opportunities to diversify energy routes and accelerate projects Turkiye has advocated for years.
He said discussions during Iraqi Prime Minister Ali Falih al-Zaidi’s visit to Turkiye had focused on transporting a significant portion of Iraqi oil to global markets through Turkiye and the Ceyhan terminal.
Bayraktar also cited potential routes for Qatari gas through Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria to Turkiye and onward to Europe, as well as through Iraq and the Development Road project. He said the possibility of Kuwaiti oil reaching Turkiye was also being considered.
“This crisis could open the door to such opportunities. Both Turkiye and the entire region, as well as global markets, could become more balanced and better prepared for future crises,” he said.
Bayraktar added that Turkiye was pursuing oil and natural gas exploration projects in both onshore and offshore areas of Pakistan.
The Oruc Reis seismic research vessel is expected to travel to Pakistan in September or October, while Bayraktar said he planned to visit the country in the coming weeks to discuss partnerships in mining projects.
A burned field of wheat in Eton Wick, Windsor, in July. Experts say the UK should regenerative agriculture approaches to increase food resilience. Photograph: Maureen McLean/REX/Shutterstock
Rejecting North Sea drilling licences and protecting nature are just some measures Andy Burnham must implement to ready country
From record-smashing temperatures, wildfires, hosepipe bans and thousands of premature deaths, the climate crisis has left its mark across the summer of 2026.
Tackling the root cause – the burning of fossil fuels – and ending the crisis will take years. So will fixing the UK government’s calamitousfailure to protect lives and livelihoods against the long-predicted affects of global heating.
But the climate emergency is right here, right now, and here are 10 policies that Andy Burnham’s government should consider announcing urgently.
1. Reject drilling licences for the Jackdaw and Rosebank oil and gasfields
This would be a vital and confidence-boosting sign that the UK is committed to putting a rocket-booster under the clean, green and very fast-growing economy of the 21st century, not the fossil-fuelled one of the last. It would also give diplomatic weight to the UK as it works internationally to cut emissions and end the climate crisis.
The supposed benefits of approving the North Sea oil and gasfields are mostly fantasy. They will have no impact on UK energy prices – oil and gas are commodities whose price is set by international markets. As the UK Energy Research Council says: “Assertions that drilling the North Sea will provide energy resilience and affordability in the face of current fuel price shocks are a delusion.”
As for jobs, the licences would support very few – again, unlike the growing green economy. Some also argue North Sea production is less carbon intensive than imports, but that ignores the far cleaner record of our main gas importer, Norway, as well as the methane emissions from LNG, and in any case the differences are small compared with CO2 savings of using renewable energy and storage instead of gas.
2. Increase windfall tax on fossil fuel giants to pay for adaptation measures
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3. Make grey water reuse mandatory in new buildings and incentivise rainwater harvesting
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4. Bring the water industry under national control
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5. Invest in proper equipment for firefighters
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6. Implement a maximum workplace temperature
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7. Fund cool spaces in every community
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8. Launch a national retrofit programme
Homes in the UK are among the draughtiest and least energy-efficient in Europe. This means they are often too hot in summer and too cold in winter, leading to high bills and spiralling carbon emissions.
Efforts to persuade the private sector to take on the challenge of making homes fit for the changing climate have failed. But a report earlier this year suggested councils could take the lead on a retrofitting programme backed by national government. Under the plan, councils would train and employ their own retrofitting workforce and, starting with key public services such as hospitals and care homes, then work through council and social housing before moving on to privately owned homes. The report said it would not only make the country’s homes and public services more climate resilient, but it would also tackle the cost of living, create secure jobs and stimulate growth. They added it would also be a more efficient way of spending the public funds already allocated for insulation.
9. Plant more trees and protect existing nature
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10. Encourage regenerative agriculture approaches to increase food resilience
Andy Burnham addresses the climate crisis by considering banning disposable barbecues.Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.Orcas comment on killer apes destroying the planet by continuing to burn fossil fuels.
dizzy:
11. Make private jets and superyachts history
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12. Tax the rich so much that they’re not able to destroy the planet
The rich hugely drive climate breakdown. Tax them out of existence.
13. Recognise Carbon Capture and Storage as a false solution and abandon it
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14. End all fossil fuel subsidies
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15/8/26 9.50pm
15. Abandon nuclear power
Nuclear is far too expensive, too centralised and takes far too long. Renewables is the way to go and will create far more employment for more people.
As I have already noted today, The Times has chosen to question whether Chris Packham is really autistic, despite the fact that he has a diagnosis saying that he is. I have already discussed some aspects of this issue. I also think it is worth asking why they have done this.
I stress that question because I cannot know the motivation of those involved. I have no access to the editorial discussions at The Times, and I am not suggesting that I do. But newspapers make choices. They decide whom to feature, what questions to ask, which doubts to amplify and what associations they want their readers to make. So asking why Chris Packham has become a target is entirely reasonable.
There are, I think, several possible explanations, and they obviously overlap, creating a credible explanation as a consequence.
The first is that Chris Packham is becoming an important figure in British public life. He is no longer simply a television presenter who talks about wildlife. Increasingly, he appears to be assuming the mantle that Sir David Attenborough wore for decades.
That matters. Attenborough acquired authority because millions of people trusted him. He could talk about the destruction of the natural world in a way that politicians could not because people did not think of him as a politician. They thought of him as someone who knew what he was talking about.
Packham has some of that authority, but there is an important difference. He is more explicitly political. He does not simply say that a species is disappearing or that an ecosystem is under threat. He asks why that is happening, who is responsible and what we should do about it. That makes him potentially threatening to some powerful interests.
Packham is a prominent advocate of action on climate change. He challenges the fossil fuel economy. He questions environmentally destructive forms of agriculture. He supports environmental protest. More broadly, he challenges the idea that the pursuit of profit should take priority over the survival of the ecosystems on which human beings depend.
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Chris Packham’s diagnosis tells us nothing about whether he is right about climate change. The evidence on climate change stands or falls on its own merits. If The Times, or anyone else, disagrees with what Packham says about the climate, biodiversity, fossil fuels or the environment, there is an obvious response available to them. They should challenge his arguments. But what they should not do is challenge who he is, or seek to undermine him, and others, by doing so. That is not just unethical, it provokes prejudice to support profit at cost to many.
We should not be surprised that profit is promoted at cost to many. That is what extractive capitalism does. That is not a flaw in its design. It is what it is designed to do. The well-being of millions and maybe billions of people have been sacrificed to that false god over decades and maybe centuries. But should Chris Packham be added to that list, to be discarded by being discredited because he asks awkward questions? I think not. And that is why this case matters.
HEAT strikes, like those due to begin this Friday by London bus drivers organised in the Unite union, will become more common as long as governments shut their eyes to the scale of climate adaptation needed.
This punishing summer, now entering its fifth heatwave, is extreme but not unexpected.
All 10 of the hottest years on record in Britain have been since 2002. The reality of a warming climate has been recognised for decades. The TUC has been urging a legal maximum workplace temperature since 2008.
Britain is bound by international treaties to seek to reduce the emissions that cause global warming, though serious action to do so has fallen well short of what’s required and open climate denialism is now fashionable again, thanks to an aggressive new right taking inspiration from the anti-science Donald Trump regime in the United States.
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Increased frequency of extreme weather, the see-saw between longer droughts and fiercer floods that are ruining harvests, has not interrupted British governments in their long push to debilitate the public sector, imposing deep cuts on the fire brigade as on every service that cannot be turned into a cash cow for private providers.
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Climate activists from Greenpeace and Uplift during a demonstration outside the Scottish Court of Session, Edinburgh, on the first day of the Rosebank and Jackdaw judicial review hearing, November 12, 2024
