Sheffielders brave rain to oppose Rosebank Oil drilling

It was encouraging to see a big turnout at the Stop Rosebank demonstration in Sheffield on Saturday, called at short notice following the Government’s announcement. Organised by Climbers for Climate, the rain didn’t put people off joining in songs and chants and listening to four speakers. 

Jemima, from Climbers for Climate said “At a time when we have been seeing devastating effects of the climate crisis around the world, from flooding in Libya and Pakistan to wildfires and record temperatures in Europe, Asia and North America, it is outrageous that our Government has given this climate-wrecking project the greenlight. Rosebank is the biggest undeveloped oil field in the North Sea. The CO2 emissions from this one field would be more than from the 700 million people in the world’s lowest-income countries create in a year. These are the same countries that have contributed least to the climate crisis but are already experiencing the worst effects of a warming planet.” 

Councillor Douglas Johnson from Sheffield Green Party couldn’t find any roses in Rosebank. “We are promised things like lower fuel bills. It’s not going to happen. Any oil or gas will be sold on the open market. It doesn’t mean lower fuel bills for any of us here. What it does mean is our Treasury bailing out a shed load of money to people who earn it already. Who pays for that? You do!”

He is right. Rosebank will be developed by oil and gas giant Equinor, which is majority-owned by the Norwegian government (40%), Canadian Suncor Energy, known for its development of Canada’s dirty tar sands (40%) and Israeli firm Ithaca Energy (20%).

The UK public would carry almost all the costs of developing Rosebank, while these oil companies take the profits.

Thanks to a huge, new subsidy introduced by the UK government with the windfall tax, the UK public would effectively hand over more than half a billion pounds to Rosebank’s owners to develop the field.  That’s over £500 million that is supposed to help people in the UK struggling with unaffordable energy bills. Equinor describes this subsidy as ‘helpful’.  If approved, Rosebank will make the UK poorer but the Norwegian state richer. Despite this huge taxpayer subsidy, the UK public will see little benefit from Rosebank. Imagine if this money was invested in insulation and renewables. That would truly help improve energy security and fuel poverty.

In his speech, Zak Viney from Sheffield’s Green New Deal Rising group, railed against the Labour Party. He said “At the moment when we desperately need an alternative, what we are faced with is more of the same. Since October last year Kier Starmer’s Labour Party repeatedly, shamefully, rode back on their promises to create a greener, fairer society. A £28 billion green prosperity fund watered down. Nationalisation of Energy and Water scrapped. Rent controls gone. A tax on the super-rich? Forget it. And now the Labour Leader has reaffirmed they will not reverse the decision to commission Rosebank.” Green New Deal Rising are organising protests and sit-ins outside Labour MP’s offices to try to persuade the party to change course.  

The final speaker was Alice Swift, who challenged the crowd to get involved in Nonviolent Direct Action to stop Rosebank. Not mincing her words, (some of which I have had to edit out!) she said “I’ve been a climate activist since I was 15 and I’m now 32. I’ve shut down 9 coal mines, 2 fracking sites and 2 Liquified Natural Gas sites with my bare hands! And we are going to Shut down Rosebank! The thing that makes me incredibly sad is how locked into this infrastructure we will be if it goes ahead. When I started people hadn’t heard of Fracking. People didn’t know about the new fossil fuel infrastructure projects that were going ahead. It wasn’t in the public consciousness. With the fracking movement, we controversialised fracking. Before fracking was just a thing that no one had heard of, that was consigned to the environmental section of the Guardian. But it was the movement that drew attention to it, made it a problem in society, made people dislike it, and made sure it was economically unviable by stopping the operations with direct action every step of the way. And that is what we’ll do with Rosebank.”

Last year thousands came together and forced oil giant Shell to pull out of the development of the Cambo oil field in the North Sea. Now StopRosebank will oppose its much bigger neighbour.

Equinor is being resisted around the world. There are Campaigns in Argentina, Canada and France. In Norway, Equinor wants to drill in Arctic waters in its Wisting oil field.

The UK government has chosen to side with the interests of the oil and gas industry over the public good. The soaring cost of fossil fuels is the cause of the current cost-of-living crisis and people are now aware of what is being done to our planet by profiteering oil and gas companies. People want a reliable, affordable energy supply that doesn’t put the planet at risk. To help StopRosebank visit stopcambo.org.uk

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