THE UK has increased its oil production since declaring a climate emergency, according to a new report.
With just weeks to go until COP26 in Glasgow, Friends of the Earth Scotland and Oil Change International warned that despite the climate crisis, new fields totalling 800 million barrels of oil have been brought into production since 2019.
According to the groups, this will create the pollution equivalent to running Scotland’s last coal power station for more than 35 years.
The report urges the Government to cease all new oil and gas field developments, end support for the fossil fuel industry and redirect the cash towards the just transition to net-zero.
READ MORE: Tories accused of misleading Scots over oil projects in the North Sea
The calls come as the UK Government looks set to give the controversial Cambo oil field, off the coast of Shetland with 800m barrels of oil and gas, the go-ahead.
Caroline Rance, Friends of the Earth Scotland’s climate and energy campaigner, questioned why the UK and Scottish governments are “still committed to extracting every last drop of fossil fuels from the North Sea”.
“Writing the rules for the benefit of fossil fuel companies and encouraging major polluters to keep on drilling for decades to come cannot possibly be reconciled with the action that is needed to cut climate pollution,” she commented.
“This toxic combination of political and financial support means the UK now has 6.5bn barrels of oil and gas in fields that are already open and being drilled, which is more than enough to see us through the transition to clean renewable energy.
“Every time the UK opens a new oil field we get further away from a well-planned just transition. Oil and gas production must be phased out in a managed way over the next decade, with investment and support redirected to scaling up renewables across the country and ensuring a just transition so that every worker can retrain and move into a good green job.”
Today at Holyrood, the Scottish Tories have brought forward a debate on the future of North Sea oil and gas.
The Scottish Government has been contacted for comment.
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