Meeting of the Parliament 12 November 2025
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.