Fossil fuel giant BP is profiteering at the expense of people and planet, say the Scottish Greens. The comments from the party’s climate spokesperson, Patrick Harvie, come as BP has published its profits for Q3 2025.
Earlier this year BP announced that it would cut its renewable energy investments and instead focus on increasing oil and gas production.
Patrick said:
“It has been yet another year of climate chaos around the world, with wildfires and flooding taking a deadly toll.
“Yet times have rarely been better for the polluters and fossil fuel giants who are raking in eye-watering profits while our planet burns and households and families are hammered with escalating bills.
“What makes BP’s profiteering particularly obscene is that they know the damage they are doing and are doubling down on it by rolling back on the few climate commitments that they had made.
“Our energy market will never be fit for purpose as long as it is run by and for multibillion pound corporations like BP and those who are determined to exploit every last drop of oil at the expense of people and planet.”
Patrick added:
“The UK government has a major decision on its hands when it comes to Rosebank. Will they keep the ban in place, or will they cave-in to pressure from the polluter lobby?
“Scotland has a huge renewables potential, but we need our governments to step up, do the work and make the investment that is needed in workers and green jobs.”
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.Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.Orcas comment on killer apes destroying the planet by continuing to burn fossil fuels.
Ellie Chowns, Green Party MP for North Herefordshire. CC image Wikipedia.
Responding to a warning from the UN Secretary General that the world has failed to limit global heating to 1.5C and his call on global leaders to urgently change course at the forthcoming COP30 climate summit in Brazil, Green Party MP Ellie Chowns said:
“It is vital we pay heed to the warnings by the UN Secretary General on the risks posed to the world of breaking through the 1.5C limit, set by the Paris Agreement ten years ago.
“As the birthplace of the industrial revolution, and its legacy of high carbon emissions, the UK has a special responsibility to be a global leader in the shift towards a green economy – and leading by example at home.
“It’s welcome that the PM is attending COP 30 and Keir Starmer must use his voice to demand action that closes the global emissions gap. He must also stand firm against the reckless and dangerous attempts to undermine climate action by Reform UK and the Conservatives. True climate leadership also means resisting pressure from the fossil fuel lobby.
“COP30 is taking place against a backdrop of continued financial support from governments for the fossil fuel industry. This includes an estimated £17.5 billion every year here in the UK.
“The government must also refuse permission for the giant Rosebank oilfield, which would create more emissions than the combined annual CO2 emissions of all 28 low-income countries in the world – the very countries that are bearing the brunt of climate breakdown.”
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Climate campaigners say the Rosebank oil field will be a ‘defining test’ of the government’s credibility on climate change. (Lucy North/PA)
Equinor, which owns the majority of the oil field, stressed it was committed to advancing the ‘Rosebank project’
Climate campaigners have challenged the UK Government to “do the right thing” and turn down plans for drilling in the Rosebank oil field.
The group Uplift – which wants to see a “rapid and fair transition away from oil and gas production in the UK” – said whether the green light is granted for the development would be the “defining test of this Government’s credibility on climate change”.
It came as it was confirmed Equinor, which owns an 80% majority stake in the oil field, confirmed it has submitted a scope 3 assessment – setting out all associated greenhouse gas emissions for the project, in compliance with new guidelines from UK authorities.
And the company said it is “fully committed” to working with all relevant bodies to “advance the Rosebank project”.
The Rosebank field, which is located some 80 miles west of Shetland, is the UK’s largest untapped oil field and is estimated to contain up to 300 million barrels of oil.
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Robin Wells, director of Fossil Free London, said: “In the face of this decision on the biggest undeveloped oil field in the North Sea, we must be crystal clear. Rosebank will be the defining test of this Government’s climate promise.”
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An oil drilling platform off the coast of Aberdeen. Officials are understood to have looked at a range of proposals in recent weeks. Photograph: Simon Price/Alamy
[Guardian] Exclusive: Energy secretary examining ways to allow oil and gas exploration without breaking manifesto promise
Ed Miliband is planning to encourage drilling in the North Sea despite a manifesto promise not to grant new licences on new parts of the British sea bed.
The energy secretary is looking at ways in which the government can allow companies to look for and produce more oil and gas without breaking Labour’s pre-election pledge not to issue new licences on new fields.
The plans, which will be announced in the coming months as part of a wider strategy for the North Sea, come amid pressure on one side from climate activists to stop all drilling, and on the other from Donald Trump to “drill, baby, drill”.
A government spokesperson said: “The strategy will set out how the government intends to meet its manifesto commitments to ensure no new licenses to explore new fields and maintaining existing fields for their lifetime.” They said the government would meet its manifesto commitments “in full”.
Miliband has been working on proposals for the North Sea for months as the government looks for ways to maximise the lives of existing oil and gas fields without allowing completely new exploration.
Labour promised in its manifesto not to grant any new licences on new fields, and ministers are now looking at how they can implement that while also gaining an economic return from the sizeable industry which already exists. Oil and gas companies employ about 30,000 people from their base in north-east Scotland.
dizzy: It looks like yet more broken promises from the Labour party, seems to be what they’re really good at. Expanding airports is ignoring climate commitments, a huge danger with the North Sea is Rosebank.
Protesters march with an anti-fossil fuel banner during the demonstration in London on January 15, 2023. (Photo: Vuk Valcic/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
“The only sensible thing to do is to pivot the North Sea to something we have an abundance of, and something that will never run out—wind,” argued one climate advocate.
As the United Kingdom on Monday faced the onset of its fourth heatwave of this summer, climate campaigners continued to call out BP for its decision to plow ahead with reopening the Murlach oil field in the North Sea, despite fossil fuels pushing up global temperatures and the U.K. government’s efforts to limit extraction in the region.
“This is climate vandalism, pure and simple,” Kate Blagojevic, Europe team lead at the group 350.org, said in a Monday statement. “BP is putting its profit margins above the survival of communities, ecosystems, and future generations. Every barrel of oil from this project pushes us closer to climate breakdown, more floods, more fires, more heatwaves.”
“The era of fossil fuels is over, and BP’s desperate attempts to wring out the last drops of oil from the North Sea are a reckless betrayal of the public and the planet. They should be winding down, not doubling down,” she declared.
Greenpeace U.K. policy director Doug Parr was similarly critical, saying in a statement that “the North Sea is on death’s door. Reserves are drying up, and what’s left and untapped is barely enough to keep it on life support.”
The Telegraph on Sunday noted recent research from the government’s North Sea Transition Authority that found there were over 3 billion barrels of oil and gas in fields already in production, 6 billion barrels in known potential developments, and 3.5 billion barrels in identified exploration zones.
According to the newspaper, BP said the Murlach field contains 20 million barrels of recoverable oil and 600 million cubic meters of gas, and is “expected to produce around 20,000 barrels of oil and 17 million cubic feet of gas per day,” due to new technologies that weren’t around when it was shut down over two decades ago.
Parr said that “3 billion barrels wouldn’t last more than a few years at current rates of consumption, and even that assumes it is economic to extract. Whatever the political rhetoric, the oil and gas is pretty much gone, and soon, so too will the jobs of thousands of workers.”
“Unless we want to remain dependent on overseas imports and watch an entire industry collapse with no plan for workers,” he added, “the only sensible thing to do is to pivot the North Sea to something we have an abundance of, and something that will never run out—wind.”
Although the U.K’s current Labour Party leaders have pledged to avoid new licensing for fossil fuel projects in the North Sea, “BP won agreement to reopen Murlach, 120 miles east of Aberdeen, under the previous government and has since been installing equipment, with production potentially restarting next month,” The Telegraph explained.
A spokesperson for Ed Miliband, U.K. secretary of state for energy security and net zero, said Sunday that “we are committed to delivering the manifesto commitment to not issue new licences to explore new fields because they will not take a penny off bills, cannot make us energy secure, and will only accelerate the worsening climate crisis.”
“We are delivering a fair and orderly transition in the North Sea, with the biggest ever investment in offshore wind and two first-of-a-kind carbon capture and storage clusters,” the spokesperson added.
Miliband in June announced new guidance for environmental impact assessments of proposed oil and gas projects in licensed fields, which came in response to last year’s landmark U.K. Supreme Court ruling. After that decision, Judge Andrew Stewart of Scotland’s Court of Session ruled in January that Equinor and Shell, which are respectively behind the Rosebank oil and gas field and the Jackdaw gas project, can’t move ahead with extraction.
The June guidance means offshore developers can now submit applications for extractions in fields that are already licensed, including Rosebank and Jackdaw. In response to that development earlier this year, Mel Evans, Greenpeace U.K.’s head of climate, said that “it’s only right for the government to take into account the emissions from burning oil and gas when deciding whether to approve fossil fuel projects currently pending.”
“Since Rosebank and other drilling sites will pump out a lot of carbon while providing little benefit to the economy and no help to bill payers, they should fail the criteria ministers have just set out,” Evans added. “Real energy security and future-proofed jobs for energy workers can only come through homegrown, cheap renewable energy, and that’s what ministers should focus on.”
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. He says that Reform UK has received millions and millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
