Reacting to the conclusion of COP29, Green Party co-leader Adrian Ramsay MP said:
“This COP has tested the patience of everyone who wants to see the devastating climate crisis tackled.
“The final agreement is simply not good enough for the world’s poorest nations with too little money to deal with devastating impact of climate change, and the oil and gas lobby has succeeded in weakening the commitment made at the last COP to ‘transition away’ from fossil fuels.
“We are half-way through a critical decade for action, and the devastation wrought through more floods, drought and wildfires is now obvious.
“The moral and scientific case for doing everything possible to meet the demands of the Paris climate agreement becomes stronger as the damage caused by every 0.1 degree rise becomes ever clearer.
“Now is the time for action. That means turning the limited financial pledges agreed at COP, which already fall far below the demands of the global South, into hard cash.
“That money – in the form of grants, not loans – needs to be available right now for adaptation and mitigation, alongside funding to cover the loss and damage already experienced by the poorest countries.
“The climate finance to fund the transition to a global green economy only makes sense if we move away from fossil fuels. Here, that means the Labour government ruling out the Rosebank development in the North Sea.
“Prime Minister Keir Starmer has shown commitment to the COP process by being one of the few leaders of richer countries to attend.
“Now, he needs to build on that foundation and take an international lead in defending the gains made through previous COPs in the face of what will be a relentless attack by fossil fuel companies backed by a climate denier in the White House from January next year.
“He must also take seriously the need to make the UK more resilient to changes in the climate that are already affecting us here.
“Climate action today is about creating a world tomorrow in which can meet people’s basic needs and enable people and nature to thrive.
“The UK government should back the call from international leaders for a reformed COP process in which the powerful fossil fuel lobby is excluded.
“The fossil fuel lobby has the self-interest to block the immediate action the people and planet need. They cannot be allowed to succeed.
“COP must become the forum that holds governments to account and pushes forward change, including supporting countries to adapt to the impacts of the crisis already being felt.
“A COP that excludes the fossil fuel companies and their lobbying arms while supporting representatives of countries and indigenous peoples most impacted by climate change can transform all our futures.”
DeSmog review of company data shows North Sea’s leading oil and gas producer downgraded estimates for CO2 stored at Sleipner gas field by almost a third.
This story is the fifth part of a DeSmog series on carbon capture and was developed with the support of Journalismfund Europe.
Norwegian oil and gas company Equinor has admitted over-reporting the performance of a flagship carbon capture and storage project by about 30 percent due to defective monitoring equipment, underscoring risks associated with plans to scale the technology as a climate solution, DeSmog can reveal.
In a footnote in its latest sustainability data, Equinor said a malfunction in equipment used to measure the amount of gas flowing through a pipeline at its Sleipner gas field in the North Sea had caused it to over-report the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) stored from 2017 to 2021.
“Due to a flawed flow transmitter at Equinor’s CO2 injection facilities at Sleipner, the figures for CO2 injected were over-reported in the period 2017-2021,” the footnote said. “The transmitter was replaced in March 2021, and the figures have been updated accordingly.”
Equinor did not quantify the extent of the over-estimates in the footnote on Sleipner. The 28-year-old project is often cited by carbon capture advocates as proof that it’s technically feasible to trap and store large quantities of CO2 underground.
A DeSmog review of publicly available company data suggests that Equinor captured and stored a cumulative total of 1.6 million tonnes of CO2 at Sleipner from 2017-2019, compared to its initial estimate of 2.1 million tonnes — implying that it had previously over-reported the amount of gas stored during that three-year period by about 30 percent. [See note on methodology at the end of this story].
A lack of comparable data made it harder to estimate how much the company may have over-estimated CO2 capture at Sleipner in 2020 and early 2021, although partial numbers suggested that the figure was also about 30 percent.
Equinor declined to say when the broken equipment at Sleipner was first detected, or how the company arrived at its revised estimates for CO2 capture. A spokesperson referred DeSmog to the company’s website and sustainability reports for further information on its carbon capture projects.
Equinor says on its website that it captures 1.0 million tonnes of CO2 at Sleipner each year, and a further 0.7 million tonnes from a similar project at the Snøhvit gas field in the Barents Sea. Figures in the company’s sustainability reports, however, suggest that it is routinely failing to achieve this level of capture.
In 2021, with the Snøhvit facility shut down due to a fire at the associated Hammerfest LNG (liquified natural gas) plant, Equinor captured and stored a total of 0.3 million tonnes of CO2, all at Sleipner, according to its annual sustainability report — less than 20 percent of the total advertised on its website.
Last year, with both CCS sites operational, Equinor captured and stored a total of 0.8 million tonnes of CO2, according to the company’s online sustainability data — about half the advertised total.
The drop in CO2 capture and storage could be linked to waning natural gas production at Sleipner, said Grant Hauber, a researcher for the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis think tank, who wrote a 2023 report on Norway’s carbon capture projects.
“As production from the Sleipner field declines, the quantity of CO2 being handled declines,” Hauber said. “Equinor has not disclosed if there is a practical minimum where the processing facilities are no longer effective in handling CO2.”
Separately, Hauber’s 2023 report showed that Sleipner and Snøhvit encountered unforeseen issues with CO2 storage, with Equinor having to drill a new CO2 injection well at Snøhvit between 2010-2016, and unpredictable underground CO2 migrations at Sleipner. The company says that its CO2 storage is now fully operational.
The downward revision of capture estimates at Sleipner and Equinor’s frequent failure to run its two carbon capture projects at full capacity echo a long history of missed targets, cost-overruns and economic problems at CCS projects in North America and Australia. These challenges have convinced many environmental groups that fossil fuel companies primarily see the technology as a cover for continued expansion of oil and gas production, rather than a viable tool for curbing emissions on a global scale.
Nevertheless, Equinor has leveraged its experience at Sleipner and Snøhvit to position itself as a key player in the UK’s plans to ramp up carbon capture capacity with the support of £22 billion of subsidies announced by the new Labour government this month.
The Norwegian company is also partnering with France’s TotalEnergies and the UK’s Shell on the Northern Lights carbon storage project in the North Sea — a key component of the European Union’s target to boost carbon capture to meet its climate goals.
Equinor says that it aims to increase its CO2 storage capacity to 30 to 50 million tonnes by 2035 from projects planned in Norway, the UK, Denmark and the United States. That would require a massive build-out: Today, the world’s combined CCS capacity amounts to about 50 million tonnes of CO2 a year.
Although the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) sees a significant roll-out of carbon capture to meet net zero targets, it has also warned of the dangers of over-reliance on the technology.
“The [fossil fuel] industry needs to commit to genuinely helping the world meet its energy needs and climate goals — which means letting go of the illusion that implausibly large amounts of carbon capture are the solution,” wrote Fatih Birol, IEA executive director, in the introduction to a report on clean energy transitions for oil companies published in November.
Oslo-based think tank Bellona, which also sees a role for carbon capture, emphasised the importance of companies providing reliable capture data.
“Bellona believes that reliable monitoring, reporting and verification is important. It is clear we need CCS, and we need to be able to trust that the system works as it should,” said Olav Øye, the organisation’s senior advisor for industry and climate.
Venting CO2 into the Atmosphere
Equinor (then known as Statoil) began capturing carbon in 1996 at the CO2-rich Sleipner field in the North Sea as a way to reduce its exposure to a new Norwegian tax on CO2 emissions.
The company promotes its carbon capture operations as a key part of its clean energy strategy, with CCS featuring in its advertising campaigns. Nevertheless, Equinor’s records indicate that its Sleipner facility did not capture and store the majority of the field’s CO2 emissions in recent years, but rather vented them into the atmosphere.
Emissions from operations at the Sleipner field amounted to about 0.7 million tonnes of CO2 in 2023. That same year, in 2023, Equinor captured and stored a combined total of about 0.8 million tonnes of CO2 at Sleipner and Snøhvit, implying that the Sleipner field released more CO2 than was stored.
In 2021, the year that Sleipner stored a reported 0.3 million tonnes of CO2, about 0.8 million tonnes of CO2 were vented into the atmosphere from operations at the site, more than double the amount captured, the data showed.
Sleipner was also one of the dirtiest offshore projects in Norway last year, when measured in terms of “CO2 intensity” – the amount of carbon dioxide released from oil and gas production per unit of energy.
Equinor lists the combined CO2 intensity of Sleipner and the nearby Gudrun gas field at 19.1 kilograms of CO2 per barrel of oil equivalent, which was the third highest among 19 listed oil and gas production sites operated by Equinor in Norway.
According to Equinor’s 2023 reporting, Sleipner emitted 658,000 tonnes of CO2, 41 times higher than Gudrun’s 16,000 tonnes — despite only producing about a third more natural gas — meaning the Sleipner field’s individual CO2 intensity would be much higher if reported individually.
The Snøhvit gas field has also proved highly CO2-intensive, even when its carbon capture facility has operated at maximum capacity, due to the energy needed to liquefy natural gas for export at the associated Hammerfest LNG facility on Melkøya Island.
Equinor reported 0.9 million tonnes of CO2 emissions from its Hammerfest LNG facility last year, making it the company’s third most polluting project overall, behind its Mongstad oil refinery and Oseberg gas field.
In August 2023, the Norwegian government approved the “Snøhvit Future” project, which includes plans to electrify operations at the LNG export plant with an approximate $1.2 billion investment announced from Equinor and project partners Petoro, TotalEnergies, Neptune Energy and Wintershall Dea.
The developers say that the new infrastructure will reduce emissions by an estimated 850,000 tonnes of CO2 per year by 2030.
While additional CCS infrastructure was considered to reduce emissions at the LNG export plant, Trond Bokn, head of project development for Equinor, wrote in an article in the company’s online magazine that expanding carbon capture at Snøhvit to meet that target would have cost at least $3.4 billion — about three times the electrification plans.
While Equinor says that carbon capture would be too costly for the LNG export facility at Snøhvit, the company aims to apply the approach in other sectors in Norway and abroad, where government subsidies are available.
In September, Equinor inaugurated the Northern Lights offshore carbon transport and storage project near Bergen, its joint venture with TotalEnergies and Shell, which it says will store 1.5 million tonnes of industrial CO2 emissions a year from a cement works and waste-to-energy plant on the Norwegian mainland.
The majority of the project is financed by $1.19 billion in funding from the Norwegian government and an additional $141 million grant from the European Union’s Connecting Europe Facility fund.
Even if Equinor reaches its 2035 goal of storing 50 million tonnes of CO2 a year — a more than 50 times increase over the CO2 the company captured and stored in 2023 — it would only offset about a fifth of the 262 million tonnes of CO2 emitted from its operations and burning its oil and gas last year, according to company data reviewed by DeSmog.
Methodology and Sources
Equinor initially reported that it had captured and stored a cumulative total of 4.2 million tonnes of CO2 over 2017-2019 according to a tally of yearly data from the company’s online sustainability data (see initial report: “Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Captured and Stored”; see current report for comparison).
The company does not break down the amount of CO2 captured and stored from its two active CCS facilities at the Sleipner and Snøhvit gas fields in its sustainability data, but DeSmog was able to estimate the amount using a separate Equinor document related to the Snøhvit project. (see: “Informasjon til allmennheten om risiko og beredskap: Hammerfest LNG”, page 4).
A chart in this document (“CO2 Lagring” or “CO2 Storage”) indicates that Snøhvit was operating at a capacity of about 0.7 million tonnes of CO2 a year over the period 2017-2019, which equates to a cumulative total of 2.1 million tonnes of CO2 stored. Subtracting that figure from the total of 4.2 million tonnes of CO2 that Equinor reported storing during the period gives the remainder stored at Sleipner, also 2.1 million tonnes.
Equinor later revised its estimate for the cumulative total of CO2 stored over the period 2017-2019 for both sites down to 3.7 million tonnes, with all changes attributed to the flawed flow transmitter at Sleipner. That implies that Snøhvit would have still captured a total of 2.1 million tonnes of CO2 during this period, but Sleipner would have only captured a revised 1.6 million tonnes.
The difference between the 2.1 million tonnes of stored CO2 initially attributed to Sleipner and the revised figure of 1.6 million tonnes suggest that Equinor initially over-reported CO2 storage by about 31 percent during the period 2017-2019. Given that the company provided figures rounded to the hundred thousand, it was impossible to arrive at a more precise percentage.
DeSmog was not able to obtain specific CO2 capture and storage totals for Sleipner or Snøhvit in 2020, when Equinor initially reported 1.1 million tonnes of total CO2 stored, before revising that figure to 0.9 million tonnes. However, the total amount of over-estimation attributable to Sleipner — 0.2 million tonnes of CO2 — suggests a similar percentage of over-reporting as the period 2017-2019.
Equinor’s sustainability dataset also indicated over-reporting for Sleipner in early 2021, but DeSmog was unable to find comparable data to calculate the size of the overestimate. The company appears to have revised the totals sometime in 2022, based on a comparison of its yearly sustainability reports.
Equinor’s webpage “CCS: Carbon capture and storage — making net zero possible” says that the company captures and stores about 1 million tonnes of CO2 a year at Sleipner and its webpage “Snøhvit” indicates that the company captures and stores about 0.7 million tonnes of CO2 a year at the field.
Equinor’s yearly emissions total of 262 million tonnes of CO2 was calculated by adding up the company’s Scope 1, Scope 2, and Scope 3 emissions reported in its 2023 sustainability data.
DeSmog shared its calculations with Equinor. The company did not respond.
North Sea oil and gas licenses may be ruled unlawful after High Court bans new coalmine
NORTH Sea oil and gas licences may be ruled unlawful after plans for Britain’s first coalmine in 30 years were thrown out at the High Court, a leading campaigner said today.
The government was urged to provide to sustainable jobs and a “coherent” industrial strategy after the ruling left “all eyes on” judicial reviews of the proposed Rosebank and Jackdaw offshore oil and gas fields.
Planning permission for a new mine in Whitehaven in Cumbria was quashed after claims it would be “net zero” were challenged by Friends of the Earth (FoE) and South Lakes Action on Climate Change (SLACC).
Mr Justice Holgate said in his judgement: “The assumption that the proposed mine would not produce a net increase in greenhouse gas emissions, or would be a net-zero mine, is legally flawed.”
Project developer West Cumbria Mining (WCM) said it would “consider the implications” but the judgement suggests a landmark ruling in June has paved the way for successful legal challenges against fossil-fuel extraction projects in Britain.
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FoE senior lawyer Niall Toru said today’s ruling was “a huge victory for our environment” which “could have ramifications internationally as there are cases abroad where challenges are being made against fossil-fuel projects on a very similar basis.”
He added: “We believe that the writing is on the wall and that WCM should withdraw its application for this climate-wrecking project.”
Activists hold a white sign reading “Rosebank will kill us” on September, 27, 2023 in London, United Kingdom. (Photo: Mike Kemp/In Pictures via Getty Images)
Oceana U.K.’s leader called the decision “a massive win for campaigners and another step towards… a cleaner, greener future for our seas, planet, and climate.”
Climate campaigners celebrated Thursday after the United Kingdom’s new Labour government announced it will not legally defend decisions to allow controversial offshore drilling in a pair of areas in the North Sea.
The two sites are Shell’s Jackdaw gas field and the Rosebank oil field, owned by Equinor and Ithaca Energy. Both projects have been loudly criticized by international green groups as well as U.K. opponents.
“This is amazing news and a BIG WIN for the climate. The government must now properly support affected workers and prioritize investment in green jobs,” declared Greenpeace U.K., which along with the group Uplift had demanded judicial reviews.
The approvals for both North Sea sites occurred under Conservative rule—in 2022 for Jackdaw and last year for Rosebank, the country’s biggest untapped oil field. Voters handed control of the government back to the Labour Party in May.
Then, as The Guardian detailed, “in June, the cases against the oil and gas fields received a boost when the Supreme Court ruled in a separate case that ‘scope 3’ emissions—that is, the burning of fossil fuels rather than just the building of the infrastructure to do so—should be taken into account when approving projects.”
“Now we need to see a just transition plan for workers and communities across the U.K. and an end extraction in the North Sea for good!”
The U.K. Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, led by Secretary Ed Miliband, cited the “landmark” Supreme Court ruling in a Thursday statement that highlighted the government’s decision not to defend the approvals “will save the taxpayer money” and “this litigation does not mean the licences for Jackdaw and Rosebank have been withdrawn.”
“Oil and gas production in the North Sea will be a key component of the U.K. energy landscape for decades to come as it transitions to our clean energy future in a way that protects jobs,” the department claimed, while also pledging to “consult later this year on the implementation of its manifesto position not to issue new oil and gas licenses to explore new fields.”
Welcoming the U.K. government’s acceptance of the recent high court ruling, Uplift founder and executive director Tessa Khan said on social media that “the immediate consequence… is that the Scottish Court of Session is very likely to quash the decision approving Rosebank, although we’re likely to have to wait a while before that’s confirmed.”
“If Equinor and Ithaca Energy decide they still want to press ahead with developing the field,” Khan explained, “then the next step will be for them to submit a new environmental statement to the [government] and regulator… that includes the scope 3 emissions from the field.”
“If you need reminding, those emissions are massive: the same as 56 coal-fired power plants running for a year or the annual emissions of the world’s 28 poorest countries,” she added. “If Equinor and Ithaca try to push Rosebank through again, the U.K. [government] must reject it.”
The government has made the right decision not to waste time and money trying to defend the indefensible.
The oil and gas industry will fight back. But the days where they can cause such devastating harm while everyone else pays the price are over.
Greenpeace similarly stressed that “Rosebank and Jackdaw would generate a vast amount of emissions while doing nothing to lower energy bills,” and “the only real winners from giving them the greenlight would be greedy oil giants Shell and Equinor.”
“To lower bills, improve people’s health, upgrade our economy,” the group argued, the government must: increase renewable energy; better insulate homes; and boost support for green jobs.
Celebrations over the government’s decision and calls for further action weren’t limited to the groups behind the legal challenges.
Oceana U.K. executive director praised the “incredible work” by Greenpeace and Uplift, and called the government dropping its defense “a massive win for campaigners and another step towards… a cleaner, greener future for our seas, planet, and climate.”
“There is no defending more fossil fuel extraction,” the organization said. “Now we need to see a just transition plan for workers and communities across the U.K. and an end extraction in the North Sea for good!”
Global Witness similarly celebrated the government’s move, declaring on social media that “this is brilliant news!”
“New oilfields are an act of climate vandalism,” the group added. “Governments must prioritize people, not polluters’ profit.”
The UK government has today (Thursday) confirmed it will not challenge the judicial review brought against the Rosebank oil and gas development.
Campaign groups Uplift and Greenpeace launched legal action against the approval of the West of Shetland development late last year.
They claimed the decision made by the former UK government was “unlawful” as it failed to consider the impact of burning the fossil fuels extracted from the development during its lifetime.
Although the new Labour administration said it would not be contesting the legal case, it does not mean the licenses have been withdrawn.
However, it leaves questions for the future of the controversial development.
dizzy: The oil companies involved in the Rosebank (and Jackdaw) fields can contest the judicial review. However, this is still a huge step in defeating Rosebank. Well done, all those involved in stopping Rosebank.
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)
Green Party’s co-leader and Bristol Central MP Carla Denyer on BBC Question Time.
In the wake of unfounded reports that Ed Miliband will announce a ban on new drilling in the North Sea, Green Party co-leader and MP for Bristol Central, Carla Denyer, has urged the energy secretary to do just that, and “send a clear signal to the fossil fuel industry that they have no future in the UK.” Denyer said:
“It didn’t take long for the right wing press to come out waving the banner for the fossil fuel industry together with the usual round of scare stories about a dent to the economy and tax revenues if we don’t continue to burn oil and gas. Those cheerleading for oil and gas corporations must not be allowed to derail us from the path towards a green transition. That is where our future prosperity and thousands of good new jobs lies. We need to seize the opportunities that greening the economy will bring.
“This is a test to see how brave and bold Labour will be and whether they will send a clear signal to the fossil fuel industry that they have no future in the UK. Ed Miliband certainly should ban all future licences for new North Sea oil and gas fields, and do so immediately.
“The Green Party would like to see him go further by revoking the licence for Rosebank which has the potential for producing around 500 million climate-wrecking barrels of oil. We would also like to see a carbon tax on polluters to help drive the transition to cleaner and cheaper renewable sources of energy.”
In a four-line statement announcing the approval of the new Rosebank oil field 80 miles west of Shetland, the UK’s offshore oil and gas regulator showed its mission no longer serves the public good.
The announcement by the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA), which regulates oil and gas extraction in the waters off the British coast, asserted that net zero considerations had been taken into account – a technical definition that makes it appear long-term oil production is compatible with climate goals. This has outraged and dismayed climate scientists, campaigners, and the many other people concerned about the UK’s faltering climate leadership.
The approval greenlights a process that is expected to produce first oil by 2026, and around 300 million barrels of oil (and a smaller amount of gas) over the next two decades. The project’s developers are Equinor, an oil company owned for the most part by the Norwegian state, and Ithaca Energy, owned by the Delek Group listed on the Tel Aviv stock exchange.
The decision is out of step with demands for rapid action on climate change coming from a range of quarters. This includes shareholder activists demanding corporations accelerate decarbonisation, direct action groups such as Just Stop Oil, and financiers concerned about the risks of “asset stranding” as renewables become cheaper than fossil fuels.
Public protests and legal challenges to the NSTA spotlight the irrationality and recklessness in the government’s expressed support for issuing new licenses. Activists are not alone in making this point.
A welter of scientific studies and reports by international agencies confirm that new fossil fuel extraction is incompatible with keeping global temperature increases well below 2°C.
Rosebank has been a major focus for climate activism in the past couple of years, as science, international policy and campaigners turn their attention to stopping new extraction, rather than solely focusing on reducing emissions. Calls to end new licensing for oil and gas are in line with climate science.
But a climate politics focused on new licensing alone misses the point. The thing is, like other North Sea oil fields yet to be approved, Rosebank was licensed for oil and gas extraction years ago.
The NSTA approval process follows licensing, sometimes after considerable time has passed. And it is this approval process that locks the UK into hydrocarbon production for years to come.
End ‘maximising economic recovery’
The core objective of the NSTA is to maximise the economic recovery of UK petroleum – a principle shorthanded as MER – as set out in the 1998 Petroleum Act. In practice, this means the regulator’s primary mission is to facilitate the extraction of oil and gas.
A revised strategy in 2021 paired MER with an obligation to support the UK’s net zero commitments. And the former Oil and Gas Authority changed its name to include an explicit reference to the “transition” in 2022, underpinned by ambitions for emissions reduction and decarbonisation.
NSTA sees its job as effecting the industry’s alignment with these goals. It is now also in charge of licensing for carbon capture and storage and offshore hydrogen storage.
Rosebank’s approval therefore reveals a deeper truth: the regulator’s guiding objective fails the public good test. Regulation aims to avoid economic, environmental and social harms, and ensure the public good through delivering collective benefits and upholding socially-desirable ideals. The Rosebank decision arguably breaches this principle.
Supporters of Rosebank argue it will contribute to the UK’s energy security and deploy decarbonisation technologies that reduce CO₂ emissions overall. These arguments do not stand scrutiny, however: oil from Rosebank, like around 80% of North Sea oil production, will be sold directly into international markets and will not materially affect the price of petrol or diesel for UK motorists.
Much of the value of that oil will flow into the portfolios of Equinor and Ithaca. That value could be harnessed to speed up transition to renewables or ensure its benefits are widely distributed, but that’s largely down to Equinor and Ithaca – not the UK government.
A decade ago, a decision by NSTA would not have raised much attention. Now it highlights a significant problem in need of reform. Piecemeal adaptation has left MER and other core regulatory principles untouched, which is at odds with the climate emergency.
Existing licensed fields escape the weak scrutiny embodied in instruments such as the climate compatibility checkpoint, a series of tests to be applied in decisions about future licensing rounds. What’s more, as a litmus test for approval, Rosebank indicates other licensed projects may get the go-ahead, like Cambo.
Removing NSTA’s central objective to maximise economic recovery requires nothing less than a rewrite of the Petroleum Act. This would be an opportunity to fundamentally revise what the North Sea is for, and whether or how to exploit its resources in the future. A start would be to consider a reversal of direction – a “minimising” of economic recovery, for example – which redefines the “economic” in terms of what is socially necessary.
Such a move will inevitably entail reviewing licences already in place, and will likely generate challenges from the sector and other powerful incumbents. Rosebank exposes, however, how the new mission of the offshore regulator has to be about securing a new public good. This needs wider social debate, and should ultimately be decided through parliament.
Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?
Protesters from Just Stop Oil, Extinction Rebellion, Fossil Free London and Scientist Rebellion take part in an ‘emergency demonstration’ at Parliament Square, central London, January 22, 2024
CLIMATE activists have vowed to launch a new campaign of civil resistance if Britain’s next PM fails to sever reliance on fossil fuels.
Just Stop Oil has delivered letters to the leaders of all major parties ahead of the election on July 4 demanding they commit to signing a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty, which would halt expansion and manage a just transition.
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They said: “It is clear that continuing to extract and burn fossil fuels in 2024 is nothing short of an act of war against humanity. “
The group warned that if the incoming leader does not establish a legally binding treaty to stop fossil fuel extraction by 2030, they would launch a “campaign of civil resistance,” co-ordinated with movements in Austria, Canada, Norway, the Netherlands and Switzerland.
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)
The Green Party has unveiled its election manifesto, sold as a plan to “mend broken Britain”.
Addressing the Greens’ launch event in Brighton and Hove, co-leader Carla Denyer said the manifesto contained measures to “offer real hope and real change”.
“Our manifesto is based on investing to mend broken Britain and offer real hope and real change”, she said, adding: “We can’t go on with an economy where most people are working harder and yet getting poorer while inequality keeps growing.”
The Greens’ policies include introducing a new wealth tax of 1 per cent annually on assets above £10 million and 2 per cent on those above £2 billion, banning domestic flights for journeys which would take less than three hours by train, and moving to a four-day working week.
The party would also bring water companies, railways, and big five retail energy companies into public ownership; end immigration detention for all migrants unless they pose a danger to public safety; invest £50 billion in health and social care “to defend and restore the NHS”; scrap university tuition fees and increase the schools budget; and stop all new fossil fuel projects and cancel those recently licensed, like Rosebank in Scotland.
