YOUTH climate campaigners have told how they are “disappointed” and “furious” at the UK Government’s announcement that it intends to grant hundreds of new licences in the North Sea.
With rising temperatures hitting records in parts of Europe and elsewhere, as well as calls from environmentalists, scientists and the United Nations (UN) to stop any future fossil fuel production and exploration, the announcement from Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Monday was met with outrage from young Scottish activists.
The National asked campaigners from three key groups involved in the fight to end fossil fuels to give us their views on the announcement, what it means for them, and for their future.
Lucas Sheridan, 23, Birmingham and Edinburgh Young Friends of the Earth (FoE) Scotland and Stop Rosebank.
I'm disappointed but not surprised that our government is putting the profits of oil and gas giants above the health of our planet and people.
The licences announced by Rishi Sunak won't help the millions who will be cold this winter or reduce energy bills.
The majority of licences don't lead to oil and gas production, only drilling that pollutes and destroys crucial natural habitats.
Most of what does get extracted is exported or sold back to us at market prices. This means that we'll become even more reliant on expensive imports to heat our poorly insulated and inefficient homes.
We urgently need the government to get with the times and focus on homegrown renewable energy and insulating our homes.
Too many of my friends spent last winter trying to study in drafty, cold flats, too worried about the cost to turn the heating on.
We’re bracing for a winter that will be much harder without the government's bill support scheme.
In a cost of living crisis, it's so frustrating to see the answers for energy security right in front of us - our island has massive wind, wave, and solar power potential.
Renewable energy is affordable, clean, creates jobs, and doesn't put our planet and its people at stake. Unless our government listens to young people the world over and takes a stand to put the public's interests first, oil and gas firms will profit while the world burns.
Hannah Bright, 21, Glasgow, community worker This is Rigged, co-founder
We're furious, but we're not surprised.
It comes as no shock that greedy Tory politicians, people like [Rishi] Sunak who would take a private jet from London to Scotland because their time is too precious for the train, care more about profit than the lives of billions of people most vulnerable to the devastating impacts of climate catastrophe.
There is absolutely no argument to be made that these new licenses are more environmentally friendly, in line with net zero targets, good for the country, or any of the other b******s Sunak is spouting.
The UN, the IPCC [International Panel on Climate Change], the IEA [International Energy Agency], and pretty much every major scientific body, have warned us that burning any new oil and gas beyond what we already have out of the ground, is a death sentence for humanity.
It's that simple - there's nothing more to talk about.
If the Scottish Government does not now do everything in their power to oppose these licenses, they are selling out an entire generation, and all future generations to come who will pay their price for their cowardice.
What good is Sunak's empty "net zero by 2050' promise" when massive swathes of Scotland are at major risk of being underwater by 2040?
It is our lives that are at stake.
It is the lives of billions of people in frontline communities - 20 million in the Horn of Africa battling famine, those facing wildfires and 48C temperatures in mainland Europe, towns in Scotland vulnerable to flooding, to fuel poverty, to food scarcity.
We are terrified, we are enraged, but we are not backing down.
This isn't the first time we've been here, from the Highland Clearances to wartime rent rises, the people of Scotland have always been systematically exploited by those in power in the name of profit.
But we've also always resisted that exploitation - we've turned to each other, found power in ourselves, our communities, and our direct action, and we've made it clear to these greedy lairds that Scotland will not stand for this.
It is more vital than ever now that we do this again.
There is no one else coming to save us - there is only us.
Calum Hodgson, 30, Glasgow Green New Deal Rising
In the middle of a summer that has seen wildfires, flash floods and record temperatures, the Conservative Government seems intent on abandoning all pretence that they are serious about tackling the climate crisis.
Monday’s news showed us that instead, this government is anti-science, anti-economy, and anti-working people.
We know that new oil and gas licences will do nothing for the ordinary household’s energy bills, they just mean more unfair profits for the biggest polluters.
So the only people celebrating the announcement from Rishi Sunak will be multinational fossil companies.
And where is the opposition to this plan?
The SNP have the influence in Scotland to take a stand against this act of climate vandalism, but instead, we see platitudes and soundbites rather than a real plan.
The fact is the science is clear, new oil and gas are incompatible with tackling climate change at the speed and scale required. We need to see the SNP make its position clear, you are either for oil and gas or against.
Every day of inaction is a wasted opportunity to help ordinary people, worried about the cost of living, worried about their energy bills, and worried for their futures.
The only way to get energy bills to fall is to support people to insulate their homes with a mass programme of retro-fitting which could provide thousands of good jobs, say no to oil and gas and invest in much cheaper renewable energy like onshore wind.
As young people who desperately want action, we must see an alternative vision of a real Green New Deal from opposition parties which prioritises our environment and our wellbeing.
