Climate campaigners urge Labour Minister to withdraw from fossil fuel event

A Fossil Free Parliament Press Release
Climate and social justice organisations from across the UK have called on Michael Shanks, MP for Rutherglen and Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, to withdraw from his keynote speaking role at Offshore Energies UK (OEUK) annual conference (17/9/24) in Aberdeen due to concerns about OEUK’s efforts to hinder Labour’s progressive climate and energy policies, and the event’s fossil fuel company sponsors. (1), 

28 groups including Fossil Free Parliament, Friends of the Earth Scotland, War on Want, Divest Lothian, Extinction Rebellion Glasgow, Stop EACOP Edinburgh, Fossil Free London and the Climate Justice Coalition, wrote to Mr Shanks last week urging him to pull out of the conference because it is sponsored by two of the world’s biggest fossil fuel polluters, BP and TotalEnergies.

Campaigners argue that Michael Shanks’s keynote speaker role at the conference is incompatible with Labour’s policy commitment to tackle the worsening climate emergency and end new oil and gas licences in the North Sea. (2) 

The letter highlights how OEUK had “demonstrably and consistently prevented progress on: reducing energy bills, enhancing energy security and advancing climate action.” Campaigners also highlighted the oil industry’s “sustained disinformation campaign” around the energy transition and described the conference as a “lion’s den of lobbyists.”

Lewis Coenen-Rowe from Fossil Free Parliament said:
 “Members of Parliament – particularly Ministers – should not engage with the fossil fuel industry or its representatives at events like this, where the industry lobby is in complete control of the narrative and the agenda. Attendance only strengthens the industry’s social licence to operate and emboldens the industry’s sustained disinformation campaign about its role in the energy transition. 

“While some engagement with the fossil fuel industry is necessary to bring about a just, rapid and equitable transition – it has to stop taking place on the industry’s terms.”

The letter particularly emphasises concerns about the political influence of the conference organiser, Offshore Energies UK, which has lobbied against the Government’s proposed windfall tax on oil and gas profits. (3) OEUK operator members include the fossil fuel companies BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, TotalEnergies and Equinor, the Norwegian oil giant which is planning to develop the controversial Rosebank oil field off the coast of Shetland. (4) 

OEUK conference sponsors – Total & BP

BP is one of 57 companies linked to 80% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions since the 2016 Paris Climate Agreement. (5) BP announced in June that it is halting new offshore wind projects. (6) BP bosses had previously boasted that the company was like a ‘cash machine’ because it was making so much profit from spiralling energy prices. (7)

French oil company TotalEnergies is one of two companies developing the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP). Stretching for nearly 1,445 kilometres across Uganda and Tanzania, the pipeline threatens to displace thousands of families and farmers from their land and will increase the severity of the global climate emergency by producing more than 379 million tonnes of climate-heating pollution if completed. (8) 

Cathy Allen spoke on behalf of the Stop EACOP campaign in Edinburgh:
 “Speaking at a conference run by oil and gas giants Total and BP, is tantamount to condoning the immense suffering of those affected by projects like the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline and gas flaring in Iraq as well as the pain of millions who have the flooding, landslides, drought, famine and displacement of climate change thrust upon them by reckless profiteering companies like Total and BP. 

“Such ministers do not have a mandate to associate their citizens with such staggering injustice and their participation is therefore inappropriate and unacceptable.”

Global Week of Action for a Fossil-Free Future

The conference comes as groups across the UK are joining hundreds of thousands of people mobilising across the world for more than 200 protest events as part of a ‘Global Week of Action for Climate Finance and a Fossil-Free Future’ to call on governments to implement a fast, fair and funded phase-out of fossil fuels and to commit to paying adequate climate finance for the damage already caused. (9) 

Tyrone Scott from War on Want said:
‘Our global reliance on fossil fuels has driven climate breakdown, devastating communities across the world, especially in the Global South. It is unacceptable that at a time when we should be focussing all of our efforts on securing a just and equitable transition away from fossil fuels, we have a member of Parliament due to give a keynote address to fossil fuel lobbyists. 

“That this is happening as campaigners are engaging in a ‘Global Week of Action’ to secure a fossil-free future shows there is much work to be done and we will be sure to continue to apply pressure to those in power.”

Shanks’ previous statements on climate

Michael Shanks, who is the Minister responsible for GB Energy, had previously spoken about the importance of tackling the climate crisis “which grows more and more urgent every day” in a Parliamentary debate in July on ‘Making Britain a clean energy superpower’, arguing that: “This is our last chance to limit global warming to 1.5° and, frankly, we are way off track.” (10) 

He has also highlighted the need to end the UK’s reliance on “volatile fossil fuel markets” and support renewable wind and solar power in order to create green jobs and tackle climate change. (11)