Nicola Sturgeon is allowing “big corporations to profit from dirty energy”, campaigners have claimed as they confronted Scotland’s first minister over her failure to oppose the Cambo North Sea oilfield.
Oil giant Shell and private equity-backed Siccar Point Energy are expected to receive final approval to go into production at the Cambo field shortly before the United Nations Cop26 conference in Glasgow, where almost 200 countries will be asked to sign up to measures to limit global warming to 1.5C.
If given the go-ahead, the site near Shetland could yield as many as 255 million barrels of oil over its lifetime, according to environmental campaigners.
And they estimate that the 132 million tonnes of CO2 emissions that could be produced would require an area of land some 1.5 times the size of Scotland to counteract them.
Ms Sturgeon was cornered by protesters from the Green New Deal Rising and Stop Cambo campaign at the Govanhill Carnival in her Glasgow Southside constituency on Saturday.
When asked if she would oppose the oil field, Ms Sturgeon said: “Look, I’m not going to stand here – it’s not an issue for the Scottish government.
“We are thinking about all of these things, we are trying to come to the right decision. There’s no doubt we should be moving away.
“So there are hard questions to ask about whether things like that are commensurate and I totally get that. There are tough things for all of us to address and make decisions on.”
One of the campaigners told the first minister she was disappointed that she would not commit to opposing the oilfield.
Ms Sturgeon responded: “You can have a politician that says to you what you want to hear, because you are standing here, or you can have a politician that says I do hear what you say, and I’ve got a lot of sympathy with it but there’s issues as first minister I’ve got to make sure that I properly consider.
“And that’s what I’m choosing to do.”
The Green New Deal Rising group, a movement of young people fighting to stop the climate crisis, later tweeted: “Big corporations profit from dirty energy and politicians like Nicola Sturgeon let them get away with it. We’re here to put a stop to that.”
Speaking after the incident, campaigner Lauren MacDonald, 20, who challenged Ms Sturgeon, said: “We are hosting Cop26 in my home city this year, yet Nicola Sturgeon and Boris Johnson both have taken nowhere near enough action to meet the commitments already set.
“The Scottish government can’t call itself a climate leader without opposing the Cambo oil field.
“How can we trust our governments to tackle the climate crisis when time and time again they refuse to take meaningful action to mitigate its effects?”
She said she was “genuinely terrified” for her future.
“It makes me so frustrated that when I confront the leader of my country, she refuses to commit to taking action to safeguard the lives of her citizens,” Ms MacDonald added.
“If we have any hope of mitigating the climate crisis and seeing a fairer society in Scotland, we need a just transition out of oil and gas immediately. We need a green new deal now that delivers good green jobs.”
Boris Johnson said “we can’t just tear up contracts’” when asked about the Cambo oilfield
Boris Johnson has signalled he would not block the development of the oilfield.
When asked during a visit to a wind farm off Scotland’s northeast coast on Thursday whether he would stop exploitation of the field, the prime minister said: “This was a contract that was signed in … 2001 and we can’t just tear up contracts. There’s a process to be gone through.”
He said there was a need to “transition as fast as we reasonably can” away from oil and gas, but the move to greener forms of power generation should be “smooth and sensible”.
Tory climate minister Alok Sharma, the Cop26 president, also refused refused to condemn plans for the Cambo oilfield despite warning the world was “dangerously close” to running out of time to avert “catastrophic” climate change.
He told The Observer that leaders “can’t afford to wait two years, five years, 10 years” to act, adding: “I don’t think we’re out of time but I think we’re getting dangerously close to when we might be out of time.”
However, the government has also refused to rule out new licences for oil and gas in the North Sea or a new coal mine in Cumbria.
The International Energy Agency said in May there must be no new investment in oil and gas projects and coal power plants from this year to have a hope of limiting warming to 1.5C.
But Mr Sharma refused to criticise the UK government’s plans for further fossil fuel extraction.
“Future [fossil fuel] licences are going to have to adhere to the fact we have committed to go to net-zero by 2050 in legislation,” he said. “There will be a climate check on any licences.”
A Scottish government spokesperson said: “We are wholly committed to becoming a net-zero economy by 2045 and, whilst this is ultimately a reserved area, any Scottish government support for oil and gas businesses operating in the North Sea is conditional upon them contributing to a sustainable and inclusive energy transition, and ensuring a secure energy supply.”
They said the oil and gas sector could play a “positive role” in Scotland’s energy transition, helping to design the diverse energy system we need for the future.
The spokesperson added: “In 2020, we launched our £62m energy transition fund to support the oil, gas and energy sectors grow and diversify, accelerating its transition to net-zero emissions.”
