Backward move hampers target

UK Government consultation on oil production in the Cambo field shows it is not serious on climate change, says Dr Richard Dixon

AUK Government consultation on the commencement of oil production from the Cambo field, 80 miles north-west of Shetland, closed at the weekend.

This one field has the potential to produce oil and gas at levels that would multiply Scotland’s annual climate emissions by ten. Almost 60,000 people have already signed a petition calling for Cambo production plans to be scrapped.

The consultation was on an environmental assessment of the plans drawn up by Aberdeen-based Siccar Point Energy and multinational oil giant Shell to produce oil from Cambo over the next several decades.

On the production side, figures in the assessment show that the development would be one of the least efficient in the European oil sector, in terms of climate emissions released per barrel of oil produced. Yet the UK Government and the oil and gas industry already have a deal which is supposed to see these emission levels fall.

On the use of the oil produced, the assessment makes the ridiculous claim that it is too hard to calculate the impact of Cambo on overall climate emissions.

The first phase of development aims to extract oil which will produce in excess of 70 million tonnes of carbon dioxide when burnt. That’s the equivalent of the annual emissions of 18 new coal-fired power stations.

In future years, extracting all the oil in the field would release almost six times as much – the equivalent a decades’ worth of Scotland’s current total emissions from all sectors. Cambo is expected to operate up to 2050, five years after Scotland’s target to hit net-zero emissions.

In May, the International Energy Agency – not known for its radical thinking – concluded that climate change means there should be no more new oil and gas developments anywhere in the world if we are to have a hope of meeting the targets in the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.

This is all rather embarrassing for the UK Government, which is trying to claim to be a climate leader in advance of COP26 in Glasgow this November.

Having overruled local objections to approve the first new deep coal mine in 30 years in Cumbria, with a new gas-fired power station being discussed for Peterhead, and now with likely approval for this new oil development, the UK is certainly not looking like it has left fossil fuels behind.

It’s also embarrassing for Shell, with a 30 per cent stake in the development, which was ordered by a Dutch court in May to immediately start planning to reduce their climate emissions.

And it is problematic for the Scottish Government, whose policy is that any support for the oil industry would only be forthcoming if the sector is

Almost 60,000 people have already signed a petition calling for the plan to be scrapped

contributing to a “sustainable energy transition”. This includes a move away from fossil fuels to renewables and energy efficiency.

So far, the Scottish Government has been silent on the Cambo development, but this could be the challenge that finally makes Holyrood ministers come off the fence.

If they support the development of the Cambo field, then they cannot be serious about climate change. If they are serious, and want to show they are more serious than the UK Government, they need to clearly say that developing this – and any other new oil fields – is not compatible with our climate change commitments.

Dr Richard Dixon is director of Friends of the Earth Scotland