House of Commons LONDON SW1A 0AA 23rd May 1997

Oil, Energy and Climate Policy

The Prime Minister the Rt. Hon Tony Blair MP and the Foreign Secretary Robin Cook MP have both recently spoken of putting the environment, particularly climate change - at the centre of the Government agenda. At the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on the Environment (UNGASS) to be held in June in New York and at the Kyoto Climate Summit in December, Britain’s policy will be under scrutiny.

We believe that it is time for the Government to start a fundamental rethink of its policy regarding the use of fossil fuels. Current UK energy policy is outdated, reflecting an old mindset that assumes that expanding the reserves of fossil fuels is in the national interest. It does not reflect our new understanding of the fragility of the global climate.

I enclose a summary of a recent report: “Putting the lid on fossil fuels”, describing Greenpeace's new campaign to stop oil exploration on the Atlantic Frontier, and encourage a phase out of fossil fuels.

A copy of the report has recently been sent to the Prime Minister calling on him to: halt further development at the Atlantic Frontier, to give priority to renewables over fossil fuels in national and foreign policy and to take a lead in negotiating a global phase out of fossil fuels. We have also written to the Deputy Prime Minister and to the Foreign Secretary regarding the foreign policy implications of exploiting even more reserves of fossil fuels thus endangering the UK Government’s international negotiating position on climate change.

Earlier this week, Heinz Rothermund, Managing Director of Shell UK Exploration and Production, recognized that our campaign showed this ‘dilemma’. He said “How far is it sensible to explore for and develop new hydrocarbon reserves, given that the atmosphere may not be able to cope with the greenhouse gases that will emanate from the utilisation of the hydrocarbon reserves discovered already?”

In 1992 the world’s governments signed up to the Climate Convention agreeing to limit the build up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels at a level that would prevent dangerous interference with the climate system. The Convention states that “Such a level should be achieved within a timeframe sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner”.

This means setting ecological limits. Scientists working for the UN Environment Programme have found that temperature increases beyond 1ºC may lead to extensive ecosystem damage. Above this they see “rapid, unpredictable and non-linear responses that could lead to extensive ecosystem damage”. It is possible from this to estimate a ‘carbon budget’ for fossil fuels – how much we can extract from the ground and burn whilst keeping the temperature increases to 1ºC. Once you do this you can calculate the carbon budget to be about 225 billion tonnes of carbon. This means that 95% of all fossil fuels thought to exist in the world must stay underground. Likewise three quarters of all the earmarked fossil fuel reserves must stay underground, meaning only one quarter of the fossil fuel reserves – oil, coal and gas – can ever be used.

Dennis Healey once memorably said of political problems, "when in a hole - first, stop digging", and that is the underlying political logic of this campaign – it is wrong and irresponsible to go on exploring for more fossil fuels. The protection of the climate dictates an end to fossil fuels. A phase out must therefore be negotiated and this should be a priority task for British foreign policy. Current talks on climate policy don’t tackle the root of the problem, fossil fuel supply. Fossil fuels are not on the international agenda at UNGASS or the Climate Convention in Kyoto. We believe that Tony Blair and his colleagues can change that and they should take a lead to all nations in starting the process of ending fossil fuels.

Britain's policy of expanding oil reserves was initiated long before climate change was recognised and it now contradicts climate policy. The Atlantic Frontier was first investigated for oil by government geologists in 1969, is now not only an unsustainable and unnecessary development but it would industrialise the last great wilderness around UK shores and Europe's most important habitat for whales, including the blue whale.

I hope you will be able to give time to considering the case in our report. I would be interested to hear your views, in particular whether you agree that priority should now be given to renewables such as solar, over fossil fuels. If you would like a full copy of the report or copies of any the correspondence I have referred to please don’t hesitate to call Jane Vaus on 0171 865 8213.

Yours sincerely