Chamber and committees

Will the member compare the cost of providing a policy of free bus travel with, for example, the extraordinary cost of the Government’s road building programme, which the Conservatives constantly tell us the Government is not spending enough money on and is not working on fast enough?

That completely ignores the fact, which I will come on to, that the vast majority of production from Rosebank will be for export.

Rosebank’s projected carbon emissions are vast—some 254 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. The harm to our precarious climate will be somewhere in the order of 50 times as damaging as the developers first admitted. That is why not only campaigners but scientific experts have consistently opposed the development of the field at every step of the process.

The Scottish Greens were proud to support campaigners who brought a successful legal challenge against the UK Government’s initial decision to approve the field. Now, the oil giants behind the project have had to submit a revised environmental impact assessment that takes account of the full emissions that will arise from drilling and burning Rosebank’s fossil fuels. Oil and gas giants can no longer get away with assessing the impact of only a fraction of the climate-wrecking emissions from their dirty business, thanks to the efforts of dedicated climate campaigners.

The science is clear: any new oil and gas field in the North Sea would represent an abandonment of our role in achieving the global target of keeping the temperature rise below 1.5°C. The International Energy Agency’s latest “World Energy Outlook”, which was published during the opening days of COP30, shows that global oil use is set to peak around 2030 and that global gas use is set to do so by 2035. That is based on the current policy intentions of the world’s Governments. At the same time, clean energy use will surge, with wind power up by 178 per cent and solar power up by 344 per cent by 2035.

However, even that reflection of the policy status quo would result in global warming reaching 2.5°C in this century, so, if we are remotely serious about avoiding catastrophic impacts, we need to accelerate the shift away from fossil fuels. It would be utterly reckless to approve Rosebank. If the Scottish Government chooses to remain on the fence, it will be choosing to throw away the last shred of its climate credibility.

The Scottish Government is also dragging its feet in relation to the pace at which we reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, because it is watering down its heat in buildings agenda.

Even in domestic terms, Rosebank will not help the Scottish or UK economies. It is viable only with millions of pounds in subsidies, with taxpayers being asked to shoulder 80 per cent of the costs. All told, the development is expected to add £250 million to the UK Treasury’s black hole. It will not help households with rising energy bills. Ninety per cent of Rosebank’s reserves will be exported, mostly to the European continent. Even the portions that are sold here will be subject to prices set on the open market, so what we pay to heat our homes will be unchanged.

Rosebank is very far from a silver bullet for the North Sea workforce. With the whole North Sea basin in decline, as has been pointed out, the number of jobs has already dropped by a staggering 40 per cent. The decline is terminal, as research for the Scottish Government has shown. The only way to give the workers of the North Sea a secure future is to support them to use their skills to build Scotland’s renewables future. Indeed, the truth that Equinor and UK ministers want to hide is that Rosebank will, in essence, redistribute wealth away from the public purse and investment in Scotland’s renewable futures and towards wealthy fossil fuel giants.

If all that is still not enough to bring Scottish National Party ministers off the fence, perhaps the fact that Rosebank profits will actively fund some of those who are operating illegally in the occupied Palestinian territories will be the final straw. Equinor’s minority partner in developing Rosebank is Ithaca Energy, which is majority owned by the Delek Group—an Israeli fuel conglomerate that is operating in the occupied territories and has been flagged for potential human rights breaches. If Rosebank is developed, the Delek Group is expected to receive about £253 million in revenue from the field. Profits from an oil field in Scotland’s waters could financially benefit a company that is linked to human rights violations against the Palestinian people. That would be just three months after we voted for a package of boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel and companies that are complicit in the occupation.

For all those reasons—complicity with occupation and war crime, betrayal of Scotland’s economic interests and the extraordinary scale of climate destruction—the Parliament must vote to oppose the Rosebank field.

I move,

That the Parliament opposes the development of the Rosebank oil and gas field.

Will the minister give way?

Will the member give way?

Will the member give way?

Will the member take an intervention?

I am sure that the minister is well aware that absolutely no one calls for all oil and gas production to be stopped immediately. Is it not clear that expanding into a new, undeveloped oil field is the opposite of a transition? A just transition is needed, but it has to be a transition away from fossil fuels. The Rosebank plan would be another roll of the fossil fuel dice.

A moment ago, the minister was laying claim to climate leadership on behalf of the Government. Why does he think that Nicola Sturgeon had the courage to say what she thinks of this particular project—Rosebank—and the current Government does not? I ask him to reflect on that, please.

Will the member give way?