Resilient, strong and fighting fossil fuels in 2025
As we come to the end of 2025, politically we’ve had a mixed bag of progress on the phase out of fossil fuels. We’ve seen the UK Government announce a ban on new oil and gas licensing (almost!), massive rollbacks of climate commitments from the Scottish Government, continued delays in the Scottish Government’s decision making on the new Peterhead power station, and the decision on the Rosebank oil field still in flux, despite the Stop Rosebank campaign’s huge victory in the courts.
It’s a bit difficult to know what to make of it all, but one thing has been very clear this year – the Scottish climate movement is resilient, we are strong and we will resist the fossil fuel industry in all its forms.
My job is to get people involved in activism around fossil fuels, and to support the incredibly creative, varied and hard-hitting ideas that you come up with to fight this destructive industry. This has made for a very busy year! From sub-vertising and cycling pilgrimages, to shareholder actions and good old-fashioned marching, 2025 has been bursting with action.
Calling out fossil fuel greenwashing & profiteering
At the beginning of the year, we started out strong with a series of actions highlighting the fossil fuel industry greenwashing around carbon capture and storage (CCS), especially focusing on the proposed new Peterhead power station and pipeline to the Acorn carbon capture project. We ran a sneaky action outside the Labour Party conference, handing out leaflets about ‘A Con’ which detailed the many benefits of CCS for fossil fuel companies – ‘selling you the solution you wish existed’.
In February we teamed up with comrades at Fuel Poverty Action to protest outside the energy giant SSE’s offices in Glasgow on the day the energy bill price cap went up yet again. We highlighted SSE’s role in pushing energy prices up by prolonging our reliance on expensive gas. We also picketed an industry greenwashing event sponsored by the (as yet non-existent) Peterhead CCS power station, holding up long washing lines hung with green clothing.
Pipeline pedalling pilgrimage
As we came into the spring, the wonderful North Sea Knitters embarked on an epic pedal-powered journey from Grangemouth to St Fergus, cycling the whole length of a proposed carbon capture pipeline. Along the way, they spread the word about the dangers of transporting CO2 by pipeline and spoke to locals about their experiences of living beside existing oil and gas pipelines. It was difficult to keep up both with their speedy cycling and their dedication to leafletting every public building they came across – I had to keep chasing after them with more flyers!
Campaign Forum takes action together
In the summer, the Peterhead power station campaign forum was born. This is a dedicated bunch of Friends of the Earth Scotland members working together and they immediately got stuck into organising a protest outside the SSE AGM in Perth.
Over the course of a couple of months of planning and scheming, the group managed to coordinate four shareholder activists to go inside the meeting and ask pertinent questions about the Peterhead gas project, which were well received by the other shareholders in the room, as well as a noisy and unmissable protest outside the venue, complete with drummers and a choir. This was a huge feat to pull off and a testament to the collective work of the campaign forum. (If being part of this group sounds like something you’d be into, send me an email at activism@foe.scot – we’re always looking for new members!)
Exploring alternative energy futures
Also in the summer, we held a full day event in Glasgow focusing on alternative energy futures. Through panels, workshops and plenty of discussion, we learned together about how our energy system currently works, who it benefits and who loses out – and then heard from a few of the groups doing incredible work to change this system.
We learned about community and publicly owned energy generation, different ways of pricing energy and how we can work together in our communities to use drastically less energy, reducing our reliance on fossil fuels. People left the event feeling energised (no pun intended!) and ready to share what they’d learned – in fact, one attendee has already hosted an event on retrofitting in her local community which sparked some great conversations between neighbours.
Then we had a really busy autumn, with a big turnout at the Stop Climate Chaos Scotland’s mass lobby at the Scottish Parliament, a climate justice bloc at the Scotland Demands Better march in Edinburgh, and of course Scotland’s Climate March in Glasgow.
Organising a huge climate march
The climate march was the culmination of months of work from an organising team spanning community groups, migrant justice organisations, environmental NGOs, and some very dedicated individuals. Thousands of people turned out for the biggest climate protest in Glasgow since UN climate talks COP26 were in the city.
The climate movement marched alongside those demanding nature protection, migrant justice, workers’ rights, Palestinian liberation and more. This physical solidarity and willingness to show up for each other was a key reason for organising the march and will continue to be crucial as our movements face attacks from the far right. Read more about the march.
Going into 2026 together as a movement
Now we’re reaching the end of 2025, it’s important to look back and reflect on just how much we’ve managed to do in a year. The significant campaign wins we’ve seen this year – the banning of new oil and gas licensing, the continued delay of the Peterhead power station plans, the Rosebank court victory and more – are a testament to the strength and resilience of the climate movement, and you are an essential part of that.
We are building a movement for the long term that wins the transformative change that people need. We’ll be bringing forward new campaigns, new ideas and new enthusiasm in 2026.
If you want to be more involved in shaping this work, then you can join FoES as a member.
I wish everyone some rest and relaxation over the winter break so that we can get going with even more energy in 2026!