This is it: we are on the brink of stopping new oil and gas drilling for good – a historic turning point that we’ve built every step towards. For the first time, the UK government is seriously examining the harm that new North Sea oil and gas drilling will do to our climate.
The government has paused approving new fields while it examines how to regulate new drilling - and it is asking us, the public, what we think should happen. Now is the critical moment to demand the decisive action we urgently need to tackle catastrophic climate change.
Click here to have your say: No new drilling
What’s going on?
Thanks to the recent Finch legal ruling in the Supreme Court, and the brilliant campaigning from Weald Action Group and Friends of the Earth that led to it, the UK government can no longer ignore the huge climate pollution caused by burning the oil and gas from North Sea fields. The government must now take these emissions (called "Scope 3") into account before approving any new drilling.
As a result, the UK government is now consulting on how these emissions should be factored into the environmental assessment process for new oil and gas projects. This consultation will effectively define the government’s regulatory approach to the billions of barrels of oil and gas left in the North Sea and the catastrophic impact they could have on our climate.
New North Sea drilling sites – areas that have been licensed for drilling but have yet to be developed – hold as many as 4 billion barrels of oil, which if burned would release 1.5 billion tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere.
To put this into perspective, here’s what 1.5 billion tonnes of CO2 looks like:
The UK government will conduct two public consultations on offshore oil and gas over the next six months:
What can you do?
We are only at this pivotal moment thanks to the dedicated pressure from people like you. But the oil and gas lobby will stop at nothing to protect its profits. Our job is to ensure that the government hears loud and clear that tackling climate change means stopping new drilling. No new oil and gas fields are compatible with limiting warming to 1.5C, and we now have a unique opportunity to end new oil and gas field approvals.
If we create enough pressure, we could see the UK take the decisive step of moving away from fossil fuels. It’s hard to believe but this moment is very much within our grasp. This could inspire global momentum to phase out fossil fuels and create a cleaner, fairer future for everyone.
Over the next few months, we need to make it impossible to ignore that people want climate action, affordable energy and a clean energy future for the North Sea now - the first step is to stop new drilling and speed up the energy transition.
