Ed Miliband has delivered the “final blow” to North Sea oil as he bows to Greenpeace and refuses to fight a climate lawsuit brought against two of Britain’s biggest oil schemes. The Telegraph has more.
The Energy Secretary has said that he will not resist legal challenges against licences issued for the Rosebank and Jackdaw oil fields – meaning the two projects are at high risk of being halted.
Claire Coutinho, the Shadow Energy Secretary, described the decision as a “final blow” for the North Sea.
Equinor is developing Rosebank, 60 miles west of Shetland, which contains up to 500m barrels of oil and was planned to operate until at least 2050. Jackdaw, which would produce 40,000 barrels a day for two decades or more, is being developed by Shell.
A spokesman for the Energy Department said: “The Government will not challenge the judicial reviews brought against development consent for the Jackdaw and Rosebank offshore oil and gas fields in the North Sea. This decision will save the taxpayer money.
“This litigation does not mean the licences for Jackdaw and Rosebank have been withdrawn.”
The legal dispute over Rosebank and Jackdaw follows a landmark decision by the Supreme Court in June, which ruled that emissions from burning fossil fuels must be considered when approving new drilling sites.
Greenpeace and fellow climate campaign group Uplift subsequently secured judicial reviews of oil licences already issued by regulators, including the North Sea Transition Authority, which approved Rosebank and Jackdaw and is ultimately overseen by Mr. Miliband’s department.
A final decision on the licences will depend on the companies and the courts, but if the Government refuses to defend the case the environmental groups are almost certain to win.
Brendan Long, Director of Research at investment company Zeus Capital, said that Mr. Miliband’s decision would put wider investment in Britain at risk.
He said: “The issue is not so much how this will affect the energy industry, but how it will affect the broader trust in the U.K. as a reliable jurisdiction.
“London has fallen out of the top 10 capital markets in terms of monies raised from initial public offerings. That might reflect that financial markets are increasingly concerned with the U.K. as a jurisdiction that values and defends property rights and the sanctity of honouring agreements made.
“It is a big mistake to believe financial markets will not appreciate the broader implications of such measures across all sectors of the economy.”
Ms. Coutinho, who approved the Rosebank licence when serving as Energy Secretary in the previous Conservative administration, said: “No other major economy is shutting down its domestic energy supply as the U.K. now is. We get roughly half of our gas from the North Sea but we will now be more reliant on imports with higher carbon emissions.
“It means £9bn of tax revenue and 200,000 jobs are being put at risk plus billions of investment into clean energy just so Ed Miliband can virtue signal on the world stage. It’s both economically and environmentally illiterate.”
Worth reading in full.
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Isn’t this criminal collusion between a government minister and an extremist Green organisation?
Blatant stitch-up.
They are in the bubble of ‘there is no truth but my truth’ therefore this patent act of self harm for our nation passes by as ‘doing the right thing by the World’.
As with failing to commit to nuclear in 2010, the seeds of our destruction are sown by those who will be affected least by the consequences.
It is “doing the right thing” by the UN and WEF. It essentially means our own politicians are happy to impoverish us by removing reliable affordable energy so they can get a little gold star on their lapel from the Technocrats and their Sustainable Development Agenda that thinks western standard of living is too high.——– Because the west became prosperous using fossil fuels and because they are a finite resource we are to STOP using them and the excuse for that is climate change. But once you look into this issue you find it is only a smidgeon of the truth elevated into a planetary emergency for political purposes.
follow the money
How can these decisions be made while all 650 skiving C-nts are on the beach ???
We knew what these duffers were going to do.
We knew that the ‘pot bangers’ needed a dose of all this.
Next May we will see what the ‘if it saves one life’ merchants make of all this self indulgent, virtue signalling idiocy as it kicks them in the trossachs.
What’s due in May ?
Yes, Millibrain truly has several screws loose.
Out of curiosity and off topic, is there anyone with an opinion on what currency or commodity to buy into? Seems like the pound and dollar are due for a collapse…
Silver, and keep it under the mattress.
Gold or silver with Monetary Metals in Arizona. They do leases and bonds on silver and gold that pay interest in gold.
I have no stake only because I cannot sfford 10 ounces of gold.
Gold is free of capital gains tax and VAT.
The collective insanity of these parasites borders on treason. They are selling their country out
It has crossed the border and is an illegal immigrant there. It deserves swift and firm action.
Ah yes, I’ll take that segue, thanks. Immigrants…I can’t quite believe this. Well I can, but I’m as incredulous as these ladies, to be honest. They obviously have money to burn. ”Erm..erm, uh…” This bloke can hardly construct a sentence and rivals Kamala Harris in the basic art of speech;
”Insane exchange where it transpires The Government are always paying for 5,000 empty hotel beds “just in case” they need them for illegal immigrants.
The meeting delegates can’t quite believe what they’re hearing.”
https://x.com/BGatesIsaPyscho/status/1828565487141224457
Much better to talk about the portrait of Thatcher!
Welcome to the UK – twinned with Venezuela
at least Venzuela is interested in accessing and monetizing its Oil & Gas resources
Watch: Colorado Residents Sound Alarm as Venezuelan GANGS TAKE OVER Entire Apartment Complex (infowars.com)
Yes, and here’s what the Venezuelans are doing in the USA:
BREAKING VIDEOS: Illegal Alien Hordes Now Hijacking School Buses As Apartment Complexes Across US Are Taken Over By Armed Venezuelan Gangs! (infowars.com)
Shock Video: Venezuelan ‘Migrant’ Delivering for Amazon Runs Over Mother Pushing Stroller, Flees Scene (infowars.com)
And here’s what the Marxist Pope says about it, as he is pictured here washing their feet:
Pope Francis says Deliberately Opposing Migration ‘Is a Grave Sin’ (infowars.com)
As Alex Jones pointed out, have you seen the huge walls of the Vatican? The Marxist Pope houses no illegal aliens there, and the Vatican is well protected by those walls.
This sets the precedent that any half wit climate activist can sue you for anything whatsoever that they claim affects climate. —-eg Having a car. Flying in a plane to Tenerife. (or Davos) Eating a fillet steak. Not getting a heat pump. Not getting a Smart Meter. Infact everything that humans do involves the release of some CO2 which means that every human activity can be challenged by lunatic activists, but also by pretend to save the planet politicians who know that controlling CO2 gives them the power to control every human activity, and that is what Climate Change policies are really for, with climate simply the excuse for that eco socialism.
Why place a handful of neat riggs in these North Sea fields producing reliable and efficient fuel for reliable and efficient ICE vehicles when you could instead smother them with hundreds of monstrous, bird-shredding, inefficient and unreliable jumped up windmills producing intermittent power for inefficient and unreliable jumped-up Scalextric cars?
I mean, come on…
This is the most dangerous human being in the UK, and the only reason he now has this power over our well being and prosperity is because the Conservatives turned into just another bunch of Liberals and truly made a pigs ear of an 80 seat majority to allow these cretinous goons that not so many voted for to now have us over an eco socialist barrel
—-I am warning everyone now that you will be forced into having a smart meter and a heat pump, petrol and diesel will be taxed to kingdom come and everything in your shopping trolley will be assessed for its carbon footprint, and all because…….the Tories made a total hash of it.
“and all because…….the Tories made a total hash of it.”
That implies they wanted to do the right thing. There is no evidence of that.
That was quite a subtle reply. ———But you know what I mean.
Yeah, no criticism Varmint, just that as time goes on you increasingly, reluctantly draw the conclusion that almost no politician or associated hanger-on is in it for the good of the people or country (any more). Quite the opposite.
And quite sobering and depressing.
Or as Mark Twain said “Politicians are like diapers, they need changed often and for the same reason”. —–They don’t work for us anymore. They work for the UN/WEF.
I like that quote. But the canvassing bloke who knocked at my door prior to this last election, did not, which makes me smile even more every time I hear or read the quote
With Labour set to make another tax raid on the oil and gas industry, you wonder whether Equinor and Shell were actually going to develop these fields in the next 5 years anyway.
A bit riçh of ClaireCoutinho.