Environmental campaigners have been highlighting companies and groups connected to Norwegian oil giant Equinor by delivering roses in order to expose their toxic relationships with the proposed Rosebank oil field.
Campaigners yesterday delivered bunches of ‘oil’ covered roses to locations in Glasgow and Edinburgh representing some form of financial or political influence over whether the Rosebank oil field goes ahead.
These included the Norwegian consulates in both cities; the UK Government building, Barclays bank and the First Minister’s residence Bute House in Edinburgh; and Glasgow City Chambers.
+ Equinor holds a 40% stake in the Rosebank field and is majority owned by the Norwegian state.
+ Barclays is one of Equinor’s corporate financiers providing them with $2.46 billion of backing since 2015.
+ The Strathclyde Pension Fund, which runs Glasgow City Council pensions investments, holds £9million in shares in Equinor.
+ Nicola Sturgeon has failed so far to explicitly oppose the Rosebank field, despite objecting to the smaller Cambo development in late 2021.
Rosebank contains over 500 million barrels of oil, which if burned would produce the equivalent CO2 emissions of the 28 lowest-income countries combined. Ahead of the COP27 climate talks, the UN has warned that the world was on course for a catastrophic 2.8C of climate warming by the end of this century.
The UN report ‘The Closing Window’ demanded that emissions should fall 45% by 2030 if we are to stay within agreed climate limits.
Friends of the Earth Scotland’s Oil and Gas campaigner Freya Aitchison said: “Equinor is propped up by governments, investors and pension funds, but by drawing attention to these toxic relationships we can undermine their reputation and highlight the dangers posed by the vast Rosebank project.
“Today’s deliveries show that support for Equinor and Rosebank is all around us, and these links must be broken if this climate-wrecking development is to be stopped.
“Climate science is clear that the development of new oil and gas fields will take us even further past safe climate limits. Lending financial or political support for new fossil fuels is climate denial.
“Governments, banks and investors urgently need to redirect support away from the fossil fuel industry that is driving the death and destruction across the world and instead invest in ramping up affordable, reliable renewable energy.”
Separate analysis has shown that developing the Rosebank field will cost UK taxpayers over £100 million, due to a deliberate loophole in the UK Government’s windfall tax.
Equinor recently declared profits of £21 billion for the third quarter of 2022.