Protests against the Rosebank oilfield in Edinburgh in 2024. Labour pledged in its manifesto to halt new North Sea licensing, but Rosebank was awaiting final approval when the party won the general election. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian
Lobbyists argued it was unfair for their industry to be treated the same as others as end product – oil and gas – inevitably produced emissions
Experts have accused the fossil fuel industry of seeking special treatment after lobbyists argued greenhouse gas emissions from oilfields should be treated differently to those from other industries.
The government is embroiled in a row over whether to allow a massive new oilfield, Rosebank, to go ahead, with some cabinet members arguing it could boost growth and others concerned it could make the goal of reaching net zero emissions by 2050 impossible to reach. Labour made a manifesto commitment to halt new North Sea licensing, but Rosebank and some other projects had already been licensed and were awaiting final approval when the party won the general election.
Documents seen by the Guardian show the industry group Offshore Energies UK (OEUK) asking for Rosebank and other oilfields’ “scope three emissions” – those caused by the burning of extracted oil and gas – to be treated differently because that was the point of their business.
A court case recently found the licence granted to Rosebank by the previous government was unlawful as it failed to take these emissions into account.
The Treasury is at the centre of a move to refocus the government’s agenda on ‘growth at all costs’ | Leon Neal/Getty Images
Exclusive: Government is inviting lobbyists and their clients to play a major role in the deregulatory agenda
“Growth comes from business, not the government.”
That was the message a government minister delivered to hundreds of corporate lobbyists, including those representing banks, arms companies and pharmaceuticals, during a webinar this morning.
Lord Livermore, the financial secretary to the Treasury, made the comments at the online event, which was the first in a series aimed at encouraging lobbyists to play a major role in the government’s ‘growth at all costs’ agenda.
In the call, which openDemocracy attended, Livermore made clear that Number 10 sees this agenda as being driven by corporations, while the government is a secondary actor that “work[s] in partnership with business”.
Also present among the 700 attendees were lobbyists representing tech firms, energy giants and consultancies, and those working for agencies including Hanbury, Headland, Lexington, Brunswick, Cavendish and Grayling.
These people and their clients are a “huge and important part” of the government’s plans, Livermore said, stressing that ministers are “really keen to draw on… the expertise that exists within your organisations and your clients”.
He added that the government’s focus is on getting rid of “stifling regulation that has for too long held business back” and “removing barriers to growth that we, in partnership with business, identify”.
The treasury minister also discussed Great British Energy’s role in “derisking investment” and providing capital for public-private partnerships, to make renewable infrastructure investment more attractive to the market.
While the government has been unapologetic about its outreach to business as a means to drive growth, Labour’s critics say an ever-closer relationship with lobbyists only heightens the impression of a government that does not have an agenda of its own.
Speaking to openDemocracy after the call, Green Party deputy leader Zack Polanski said: “With inequality rife, the government should be listening to the people who keep our country running and those suffering, not hosting desperate mass Zoom calls with arms dealers and oil giants.”
Cutting red tape
Setting out the government’s priorities, Livermore put a particular focus on achieving major reform to the planning system to encourage more commercial and infrastructure projects, and getting rid of regulations that “stand in the way of businesses investing”.
Livermore talked up the recent ousting of the head of the competitions regulator and his replacement with a former Amazon executive as evidence that the government is taking seriously its deregulatory agenda.
He also mentioned the recent push for regulators to submit proposals for growth and said Labour’s National Wealth Fund will “help catalyse private investment into sectors where at the moment, perhaps there’s a too high degree of risk”.
“We can use the National Wealth Fund to help derisk some of those investments,” said the minister. Economists describe this process as the state stepping in to improve the private returns on infrastructure assets.
Livermore continued that the fund could be used to “guide investments, particularly into the kind of clean energy investments of the future that we want to see”.
The government-lobbyist calls are being led by a new partnerships team in No 10 fronted by James Carroll, who has previously worked for the party on external relations and business engagement.
Also on the call was a senior executive at Anacta UK, described by The Times as the “first Starmerite lobbying firm”, and a banking lobbyist who is also involved in the running of Labour in the City, a group which convenes Labour supporters who work in financial services.
Lobbyists were able to submit questions during the call. One criticised “some parts of the business community” which have been “vocally critical about the government’s handling of the economy so far,” describing it as “unhelpful”.
They then asked: “How can firms who don’t want to talk down the UK but would rather promote a more positive narrative about the many opportunities open to British businesses best work with the government to do so?”
This prompted Carroll to quip: “I promise I haven’t planted that question.”
Carroll then rounded out the call by reiterating the importance the government places on developing this relationship with lobbyists.
“Just to emphasise,” he said, “your clients [and] your expertise is critical to delivering these ambitious national missions the prime minister has set out and the chancellor reiterated this week.”
Polanski, the Green’s deputy leader, said the plans to derisk investment “amounts to privatising the rewards and socialising the risks”.
He added: “Regulation exists for a reason, Grenfell stands as a towering reminder of lives lost and the total failure of standards.
“This isn’t growth for the many, just more wealth for the super-rich while the rest of us are told to look up at their private jets and wait for the trickle down.”
Republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
“At a COP shaped by more than 600 fossil-fuel lobbyists roaming the halls, parties fighting for progress must push back against weak language that allows the fossil fuel industry to continue its deadly expansion,” said one campaigner.
Climate action groups were outraged Thursday as global policymakers released a draft agreement making clear that dire warnings from energy experts and scientists regarding fossil fuel extraction have not gotten through to them, with the document failing to endorse a phase-out of oil and gas use.
The draft agreement was published as the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) comes to a close in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, and is expected to be heavily revised in the coming days.
“As climate impacts and injustice accelerate, lives, livelihoods, cultures, and even whole countries are lost, the latest draft cover note from the COP27 presidency pushes the pedal to the metal on the highway to climate hell.”
The absence of crucial language regarding oil and gas left campaigners concerned that the conference, where hundreds of fossil fuel lobbyists were present, will ultimately fail to produce an agreement that treats the climate crisis with the urgency needed.
“We came to Sharm el-Sheikh to demand real action on meeting and exceeding climate finance and adaptation commitments, a phase-out of all fossil fuels and for rich countries to pay for the loss and damage done to the most vulnerable communities within developing countries by agreeing a Loss and Damage Finance Fund,” said Yeb Saño, Greenpeace International’s head of delegation at the summit. “None of that is on offer in this draft. Climate justice will not be served if this sets the bar for a COP27 outcome.”
The draft agreement “encourages the continued efforts to accelerate measures towards the phase-down of unabated coal power and phase out and rationalize inefficient fossil fuel subsidies.”
It also echoes the call in last year’s document out of COP26 to emphasize “the importance of exerting all efforts at all levels to achieve the Paris agreement temperature goal of holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.”
But the omission of a phase-out of all fossil fuel extraction, which delegates from India have lobbied for at COP27 and which the U.S., U.K., and European Union expressed conditional support for in recent days, denotes a draft document that “ignores the science of 1.5°C” even as it pledges to limit the temperature increase, said Tzeporah Berman, chair of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative.
New draft decision text out this morning at #COP27 ignores the science of 1.5°C.
🛢️ fails to mention oil, gas
❌ doesn’t end fossil fuel expansion
⛏️ phase down “unabated coal” still in but “unabated” is a loophole big enough to drive a drill rig through.
“Acknowledging only the need to phase down coal while ignoring oil and gas is hugely problematic. This predatory delay is out of line with the science and with 1.5 degrees,” Collin Rees, campaign manager at Oil Change International, told Bloomberg. “At a COP shaped by more than 600 fossil-fuel lobbyists roaming the halls, parties fighting for progress must push back against weak language that allows the fossil fuel industry to continue its deadly expansion.”
The draft is the first agreement out of an annual U.N. climate conference to address “loss and damage”—the harms already suffered by countries in the Global South due to the climate crisis and the need for wealthy governments to help finance their recovery.
The document does not provide details about how a loss and damage fund would operate, saying only that it “welcomes” the inclusion of the issue in the final agreement.
“More than 40 million people in the Horn of Africa are currently experiencing climate-induced hunger crisis,” said Nafkote Dabi, climate change policy lead for Oxfam, on Wednesday. “Pakistan is faced with $30 billion worth of loss and damage from the recent mass floods that left a third of the country under water. It is crucial that developing countries can access a formal fund to pay for the damages and losses they are already suffering today.”
Rich countries must meet their $100 billion annual goal for climate finance in addition to establishing a new Loss and Damage fund that is fit for purpose, accessible and gender responsive,” Dabi added. “Rich countries must heed the urgent call and deliver a loss and damage fund at COP27.”
The document includes some areas of improvement over the agreement written at COP26 last year, such as a call for multilateral development banks to scale up climate finance “without exacerbating debt burdens” for countries in the Global South, but leaves out details on how wealthy countries must strengthen their emissions-slashing targets.
“There should be a clear road map by those who are emitting a lot to start reducing their emissions,” Collins Nzovu, Zambia’s environment minister, told Bloomberg. “We are headed completely in the wrong direction—driving very, very fast into a ditch.”
Saño condemned the draft as “an abdication of responsibility to capture the urgency expressed by many countries to see all oil and gas added to coal for at least a phase-down.”
“As climate impacts and injustice accelerate, lives, livelihoods, cultures, and even whole countries are lost,” he added, “the latest draft cover note from the COP27 presidency pushes the pedal to the metal on the highway to climate hell.”
Republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
