A CLIMATE campaigner confronted Nicola Sturgeon at COP27 over new oil and gas licenses – even though it’s a reserved matter.
Activist Wiktoria Jedroszkowiak made headlines across the Unionist media after she filmed herself challenging Scotland’s First Minister on the Rosebank oil field.
Rosebank, the largest undeveloped oil and gas field in the UK which lies to the west of Shetland, may be brought online after Norwegian state-owned Equinor submitted plans earlier this year.
If approved, the first phase of the project would see 324 mmboe (million barrels of oil equivalent) of oil and gas extracted.
This would make it twice the size of Cambo – the proposed oil field off Shetland which Nicola Sturgeon publicly said should not get the green light last year.
Shell pulled out of the project in December after extensive campaigning from climate activists, arguing there was a weak economic case to go ahead.
While the First Minister vocally opposed the project – and has since criticised UK plans to issue up to 100 new North Sea oil and gas licences, saying new ones should only be granted if there is a “robust” climate compatibility check first – it is Westminster which is responsible for approving or rejecting such proposals.
Despite this, Jedroszkowiak challenged Sturgeon as she appeared to be going between events at COP27 in Egypt.
“My friends from Scotland, they are very concerned about the Rosebank oil field,” the campaigner told the SNP leader.
“I want to ask if you have any opinion on that.”
The First Minister told the campaigner that she had to go, before her staffer Liz Lloyd said she could continue speaking to the activist.
Activist confronts @NicolaSturgeon at #COP27 about the Rosebank oil field in the UK which would create as much CO2 as 28 countries in the Global South do annually. Climate targets mean nothing if politicians aren’t willing to walk the talk. Step 1: Commit to #StopRosebank. pic.twitter.com/b6W6kE7vWB
— #StopRosebank (@StopCambo) November 8, 2022
Jedroszkowiak went on: “It was very important when you said no to Cambo last year.”
Sturgeon told the campaigner: “My views on these things are really clear.
“We’ve got to move away from fossil fuels, we’ve got to do that in a just way which is why we’re talking about it – your friends in Scotland speak to me about these things regularly.”
The First Minister walked away as the activist asked her to say explicitly whether she would say no to the Rosebank oil field.
Scotland’s Net Zero Secretary Michael Matheson said Sturgeon has previously made clear the “unlimited extraction of fossil fuels is not consistent with our climate obligations”.
He added: “It is alarming that the UK Government appears to believe that licensing of more than 100 new oil and gas fields will not ‘materially impact’ the ability of the UK to reach net-zero by 2050 and reckless to believe that this approach is in anyway consistent with our climate obligations.
“It is also extremely disappointing that the climate compatibility test proposed by the UK Government is limited to new exploration, and that the bar has been set so low in terms of the test itself.
“It is a lightweight version of the test consulted upon earlier this year.”
Sturgeon has attended the first days of talks at the key climate summit in Egypt this week, with Glasgow playing host to world leaders last year.
The First Minister announced a funding boost of £5 million on Tuesday to combat the impact of climate change on developing countries.
Speaking at an event hosted by the New York Times in Sharm El-Sheikh alongside European Climate Foundation chief executive Laurence Tubiana and Liberal International president Hakima El Haite on Tuesday, the First Minister said the mood at the conference was “increasingly impatient, frustrated and, yes in some quarters, bordering on justifiable anger”.
“There is a lot at stake here,” she said.
“It’s really, really important that we don’t allow optimism to be blind faith, because we’re nowhere near where we should be right now.”
