How the climate movement has resisted new gas pollution at Peterhead
This year, things really hotted up for the campaign to stop a new gas-burning power station in Peterhead. It’s been a jam packed 12 months of planning, demos, rallies, door knocking, letter writing and even knitting!
At the beginning of the year, we knew that we needed to get the word out about the campaign. The proposal to build a huge new polluting power station had been sitting with the Scottish Government for their decision for many months (and hopefully will stay that way!) but not many people, including politicians, knew about the importance of making sure these plans didn’t go ahead.
Putting pressure on the developers, SSE & Equinor
Campaign group North Sea Knitters immediately got to work early this year, with a visit to the SSE headquarters in Perth spreading the word about their concerns to staff and visitors to the site alike.
Swiftly after that, we visited the Equinor offices in Aberdeen. Equinor, as many will know, are behind the Rosebank oil field proposal and have also added the Peterhead carbon capture project to their shameless climate wrecking roster. However, we joined with folks in Argentina, Canada, the UK, Brazil and Norway for a Global Day of Action focused on showing resistance to Equinor’s plans.
Throughout the year we have been calling out the high costs and unrealistic claims of the carbon capture technology on which the entire Peterhead gas project is reliant. We have made it clear to press and politicians that this technology is designed to greenwash the extension of the fossil fuel industry and will critically undermine the transition to renewables.
Building public opposition to Peterhead gas
In May, we published an open letter to the Scottish Government signed by 44 organisations from environmental, climate and fuel poverty groups urging minister to reject the new power station. The open letter signals a clear desire for a fair and fast fossil fuel phase out to be higher up the political agenda and for climate action that also benefits people, with lower energy bills and warmer insulated homes.
The letter reinforced the point that if developers are given the green light for Peterhead, it means that our household energy bills will be tied to the global price of gas. The international gas price is extremely volatile and can be driven up by events far beyond our control like natural disasters or wars like the invasion of Ukraine.
The summer months were filled with a lot of chatting to people, setting up stalls and flyering at local events, as well as a demo outside of SSEs AGM in Perth. Joined by a host of people including Fuel Poverty Action and Friends of the Earth Tayside, people chanted, listened to speeches and demonstrated their resistance to the new station, making it clear that SSE are using claims about carbon capture to try and greenwash their high polluting plans.
Inside the AGM, the knitters were at it again, disrupting the AGM with some brilliant questions to SSE Board Members and emerging triumphant, with iconic red scarves in hand!
In July, we were also joined by two new members of staff – Michelle and Guy – who live and work in the north east of Scotland. They have been doing some incredible work in Peterhead and Boddam (the village right next to the existing Peterhead power station) which you can read about in their look back at the year.
Challenging cosy Ministerial meetings with developers
We submitted a complaint to the Scottish Government about 27 breaches of the Minsterial code of conduct over its handling of the Peterhead project. The breaches include ministers discussing the planning application with developers, ministers publicly supporting the project and the former First Minister Humza Yousaf appearing in a promotional video for power station developers SSE. Despite over 60 meetings with the developers, ministers have refused to meet objectors like ourselves who are concerned about the project.
Our investigation highlighted how the Scottish Government has treated the outcome of this planning application as a foregone conclusion right from the beginning and has failed to follow the planning process and assess the evidence objectively. The public pressure and scrutiny we have managed to bring has so far blocked the approval of this climate disaster.
In early October, we handed in our petition – signed by over 13,000 people and counting – to the Scottish Government. It is one of the biggest petitions in Friends of the Earth Scotland’s history and due in large part to the amazing and creative organising done by people all over Scotland.
We brought fossil free activists together in Perth in November to discuss our collective campaigns, share knowledge and strengthen our connections.
Revealing the true climate harm of new Peterhead gas
Our last big piece of work this year was publishing expert research that revealed that the climate pollution from the proposed Peterhead gas plant could be five times higher than the developers SSE and Equinor have disclosed. The plant could cause 1 million tonnes more carbon dioxide each year than claimed in official planning documents submitted to the Scottish Government.
The research, by independent think tank Carbon Tracker, highlights how the companies’ Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) – a legal requirement in planning applications – deliberately failed to account for the climate pollution from a range of factors, including the greenhouse gases produced by extracting and transporting the gas which will be burned to generate electricity.
We are demanding that the Scottish Government orders the companies to produce an honest assessment of the true climate emissions from the project. You can watch a short explainer of the research on YouTube.
2024 has been an amazing year of people powered action to stop new fossil fuel infrastructure both in Scotland and around the world. The campaign against new gas in Peterhead has grown in size and strengthened our arguments based on the project’s climate harm, cost to energy bills and the unreliability of carbon capture technology.
Huge well done to everyone who has played a part in the campaign, from emailing politicians, coming to events or helping get the word out about this project.
We also have more online actions you can take to ensure that decision makers find out the true climate impact of the Peterhead project. Click through to find out more: