By Robyn McAvoy
15th April 2022
Climate activists have blocked a Government building in Edinburgh in protest of a new proposal for Jackdaw gas field.
Activists from the Stop Cambo campaign staged a peaceful sit down protest in front of the government building on Wednesday to protest the new proposal of the Jackdaw gas field just east of Aberdeen as they urge regulators to reject the new plans.
Talking to STV News, a Stop Cambo climate activist Lauren MacDonald said: “Jackdaw will not lower bills, it will not provide energy security and it will push us further towards an unliveable climate.”
Shell’s plans for the Jackdaw gas field were rejected in October of 2021 as they were considered to be too polluting to the environment. Shell has now amended this plan and resubmitted their application requesting consent for the project.
The resubmission of the application comes as the UK government plan to produce more oil and gas locally rather than relying on imports from Russia. The Government will consider plans for the approval of Jackdaw until the 18th of April 2022.
If approved, production from the Jackdaw field will not start until late 2025, meaning it will have no effect on the increasing bills that UK households are seeing this year.
Caroline Rance, Climate and Energy Campaigner for Friends of the Earth Scotland has previously said on Shell’s plans for Jackdaw: “Opening new oil fields like Cambo and Jackdaw would further lock us into a broken fossil fuel energy system that is already unaffordable for millions of households in the UK and is worsening the climate emergency.
“Shell made obscene levels of profit last year, while millions of people in the UK have been forced into fuel poverty from soaring energy bills.”
She then went on to say: “Experts have made it clear that increasing the supply of oil and gas will take decades to deliver, won’t have any real downward effect on household bills and will endanger people by accelerating climate change and extreme weather.”
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