Peace & Justice has joined in a Stop Climate Chaos Coalition, a coalition of over 60 charities, unions and community groups, in a letter calling on the First Minister to firmly oppose approval of Cambo oil field stating “a failure by the UK Government to step in and block this would be a serious breach of global trust.”
Cambo is the second largest undeveloped field on the UK Continental Shelf, containing 800 million barrels of oil. The first phase seeks to extract 170 million barrels ‒ the climate equivalent of running 18 coal-fired power stations for a year ‒ and would continue until 2050: five years after Scotland is due to reach net-zero emissions. The second phase would continue beyond 2050, and aims for ‘full-field development’.
The letter continues “Approving Cambo would contradict the International Energy Agency which has said twice that to meet global net zero by 2050 and to limit heating to 1.5ºC above pre-industrialised levels, there can be no new oil and gas fields approved for development.” It adds: “The approval of Cambo would also go against the advice of the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres who, said Countries should end all new fossil fuel exploration and production”.
Peace & Justice Scotland Coordinator Brian Larkin said: “The world’s nations are planning to extract 240 percent more coal and 57 percent more oil than would be needed to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. It’s clear now, from the science and the increasingly regular extreme weather events, that that would be catastrophic. The First Minister should call on Boris Johnson to reject the proposed Cambo oil field, and, as all eyes turn to Glasgow for COP26, send a clear message to the world – that it’s time to stop all new fossil fuel extraction.”
Read the Stop Climate Chaos Scotland press release here.
Read the full text of the letter here.
