Dear Friends,
The damage caused by developing the Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gas fields, both still under consideration by the UK government, would destroy any economic benefits many times over, according to an analysis by Luke Hatton, a researcher at Imperial College London.
Hatton’s analysis, which has been submitted to the government’s Rosebank consultation and to an academic journal, was featured in a Guardian article published on Monday; it estimates the economic damage caused by the carbon pollution from the oil and gas produced by these two fields would be between £119bn and £336bn, far surpassing the £28.7bn in estimated benefit.
We should all let our MPs know that we can’t afford Rosebank or Jackdaw. In fact, our Communications Officer Cameron Conant has written an article for this month’s newsletter asking, ‘What is the cost of living in a fossil-fuelled world?’ More, it would seem, than our cost-of-living conscious Prime Minister may be willing to acknowledge.
While politicians continue to make excuses for doubling-down on planet-heating and expensive forms of energy, we are inspiring the Church and wider society to model something different by investing in climate solutions – something we will talk about at our upcoming Green Investment Roadshow events in London on 7 September and in Worcester on 24 September.
As well as continuing to speak out about the need to stop Rosebank, we will also be at the Greenbelt Festival in Northamptonshire over the August Bank Holiday Weekend for a conversation with the Methodist Church and JustMoney Movement about legal action around HSBC’s funding of a coal mine in Colombia (3.30pm on Friday), as well as for a panel discussion about countering the far right and climate disinformation (3.30pm on Saturday). If you are going to Greenbelt, do join us, or come along to one of our other upcoming events.
