Stop Rosebank while Europe burns!

As I write this, record-breaking wildfires are being reported all over Europe and nearby at Tintwhistle. Longley Park in Sheffield is currently burning. 300,000 people have been evacuated from their homes in France and Spain. We are seeing very clearly what it means to live on a planet that has been heated by 1.5 degrees C by the insulating blanket of CO2, caused by emissions from burning fossil fuels. Greta Thunberg was right: our house is on fire.

Meanwhile, new Prime Minister Andy Burnham is reportedly still considering opening new oil and gas fields at Rosebank and Jackdaw in the North Sea. We have to stop him!

On Monday, Tell the Truth Sheffield joined with campaigners from Stop Rosebank, South Yorkshire Climate Alliance, the Green Party, Extinction Rebellion, the Climate Choir, Better Buses for South Yorkshire, Climate Vigil and Sheffield Quakers to take some photographs outside Sheffield’s famous landmark, the Crucible Theatre. This is part of a national campaign organised by Stop Rosebank. Members of these organisations are being urged to write to their MP, including one of these photos or one they take of themselves. There is a template to use here and a briefing to send them here. (Note the Template is already slightly out of date, so do please edit it as Andy Burnham is now PM and the EDM has been debated.) Alternatively, write directly to your MP. The addresses can be found here.

Here is my letter to Louise Haigh MP, who now has a very powerful post in the Cabinet as First Secretary of State of the United Kingdom. It is partly based on the Stop Rosebank Template. Feel free to copy and paste and edit this to send to your MP.

Dear Louise

Congratulations on your promotion to the role of First Secretary of State and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. It is good to see so many MP’s from Yorkshire in the Cabinet.

As I write, we are approaching the third heatwave of the summer and Tintwhistle Moor is still on fire. In France and Spain, wildfires burn worryingly out of control, forcing many to evacuate their homes. Greta Thunberg was right: our house is on fire, and we should be reacting to the climate and nature emergencies with a similar commitment to when our country went to war with the Nazis.

There are many rumours in the press suggesting that Prime Minister Andy Burnham is preparing to announce support for the Rosebank oil field. Whether this is true or not, I am writing to urge you to ensure that he does not derail our progress on climate and energy security. Specifically, I call on you to urge Andy Burnham to publicly oppose the Rosebank and Jackdaw oil fields and put ordinary people, not profiteering oil companies, first.

I attach two photos of me campaigning with various groups outside the Crucible, opposing Rosebank.

The Government, BBC, newspapers and other media continue to fail to properly inform the public about the most frightening aspects of climate change. Very rarely are tipping points mentioned or explained. These are all now far more likely as the Earth has exceeded 1.5 degrees C of warming for the last 3 years. If AMOC collapses, for instance, the UK will no longer be able to feed its citizens.

In January 2025, the British Insurance Industry predicted that 4 billion people could be dead in this century due to the breakdown of our climate. We’re now a year and a half on from that report, and the silence from media and Government is deafening.

We must do far more to try to avoid this with a very rapid transition away from the use of fossil fuels, investing instead in insulation, heat pumps, renewable energy in all its different forms, battery storage and a modern electricity grid. Also, we must do far more to prepare for the even worse weather that is now inevitable, be it floods, storms, heatwaves or droughts.

True climate leadership must go hand-in-hand with economic justice for all communities. We cannot afford to lock ourselves into decades of fossil fuel pollution that won’t lower our bills. Instead, we need a commitment to a just transition that protects workers, secures our energy future, and brings well-paid, unionised green industrial jobs back into our local communities.

The reality is that jobs in the North Sea oil and gas industry have halved in the last decade, thanks to its dwindling reserves, despite previous governments issuing hundreds of new licences. New fields like Rosebank will not stem this decline; they only further delay the inevitable transition to renewables.

Clinging to oil and gas leaves workers behind, while oil and gas bosses make millions. By continuing to prioritise a declining industry with fewer returns and fewer jobs, we are leaving our future in the hands of an industry that only cares about protecting its profits.

10 major national trade unions and 1,900 trade unionists are demanding that the government reject the Rosebank oil field. These unions represent firefighters, ambulance staff, network management in the gas sector, teachers, nurses, cleaners, civil servants and more.

As my representative, please write to Andy Burnham and call on him to oppose fossil fuel expansion, prioritise a worker-led, green industrial strategy and prioritise educating the public about the climate emergency by screening the People’s Emergency Briefing film on prime-time TV.

I urge you to:

– Call on Andy Burnham to refuse development of the Rosebank and Jackdaw oil fields.

– Send him the MP briefing on Rosebank: https://www.stopcambo.org.uk/updates/mp-briefing-rosebank-oil-field

– Demand a commitment to a just but rapid transition that protects existing energy workers and brings well-paid, unionised green industrial jobs back into local communities.

Yours sincerely

Graham Wroe

TelltheTruthSheffield.org