OnTheWight always welcomes a Letter to the Editor to share with our readers – unsurprisingly they don’t always reflect the views of this publication. If you have something you’d like to share, get in touch and of course, your considered comments are welcome below.
This from Maggie Nelmes of Ventnor shares this Open Letter to Isle of Wight Conservative MP, Bob Seely. Ed
Dear Bob Seely MP
I am writing, as your constituent, to ask you to attend the backbench debate “COP26 and limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°c” on Thursday 21st October.
Please call on the UK government to end all fossil fuel exploration, production and funding, including withdrawing support for oil extraction on the Isle of Wight, in the Cambo Field (North Sea) and Horse Hill (Surrey), the Whitehaven coal mine (Cumbria), and a gas mega-project in Mozambique.
Licences issued
The Government issued licences some seven years ago to oil companies to drill under more than half of the Island, in my view in an area with very unstable geological faulting, with severe water shortages necessitating the importation of a quarter of our needs from the mainland.
I believe there is a very real danger that our drinking water will be polluted by oil, chemicals, and radioactive substances from deep underground leaking into our rivers. Air pollution, soil contamination, but greatest of all, global heating leading to climate breakdown and the threat to life on Earth, are all the result of extracting fossil fuels.
Ill-prepared for UKOG application
The Isle of Wight Council was ill-prepared for UKOG’s planning application – no Island Plan and no Waste and Minerals Plan with any mention of oil and gas, as it hasn’t been updated since 2000.
So how can it defend the Island from what in my view are harmful developments like this?
3,400 objections played down
Council officers, while recommending planning consent, have tried to play down the number of objections they received from two public consultations.
They say a thousand – count them, and you will find some three thousand four hundred objections. And some four thousand five hundred people signed a petition against this development, presented to the Council last week.
Government action needed
The Government needs to step in now and withdraw all licences to extract fossil fuels.
Please attend the debate on 21st October and, whatever the result of the Planning Committee’s decision, speak out for the sake of the Island, the planet and all life on Earth.
Guterres: “Code red for humanity”
In only two weeks, the UK will host the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has described the latest report from the IPCC, the world’s leading climate scientists as a “code red for humanity”, adding that it “must sound a death knell for coal and fossil fuels, before they destroy our planet. Countries should end all new fossil fuel exploration and production”.
No change in Gov behaviour
The UK wants to be a climate leader. The eyes of the world are upon us. But our government hasn’t changed its behaviour.
Four examples illustrate this:
- Mozambique gas project: the Government is funding a gas mega-project in Mozambique with $1.15 billion of public money – a project that has already contributed to local humanitarian problems and will have catastrophic climate and environment impacts if finished.
- Cambo oil field, west of Shetland: the Government is considering approving development of this new oilfield, containing 800 million barrels of oil. This could produce oil beyond 2050, the date the UK has pledged to reach net-zero emissions. Emissions from burning all Cambo’s oil would be ten times Scotland’s annual emissions.
- Horse Hill, Surrey: a local resident is challenging the County Council’s decision to grant planning permission for oil extraction here, months after it declared a climate emergency. The challenger is opposed by the Council and the developer. And by the Government, which is effectively backing a project that would extract oil almost up to its own net-zero target date.
- Whitehaven coal mine, Cumbria: the Government is considering granting permission for a new mine to extract coal for making steel. The Climate Change Committee has said this would increase global carbon emissions, and the European steel industry – the main market for the mine’s coal – is moving away from coal.
The UK cannot claim to be a global leader on climate change while continuing to support these projects.
UK support for fossil fuels needs to end now
The climate crisis needs action. We need to end UK support for fossil fuels, here and abroad. This means no more proposals for new fossil fuels in the UK and no more funding for dirty energy projects overseas.
Please speak in this debate and ask the Government to end its support for oil drilling on the Isle of Wight and these four projects, and to set a date for ending all fossil fuel exploration, production and funding.
