Just Transition in Glasgow – now is the time for ‘For’ and ‘Against’
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Nov 19, 2021
“We need a massive programme of retrofitting homes”. Francis Stuart of the Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC) is outlining his understanding of the social project that needs to take place, the transformation of pretty much the entirety of the housing stock of Scotland – and indeed the UK. Stuart sits behind a long table...
How to Capture the Future and Store Capital – the plans for CCS in Liverpool Bay
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Nov 5, 2021
You can see the future from Formby Beach. You don’t even need to climb up on one of steep sand dunes to catch a glimpse of it. It is out there yellow and white lights blinking in the grey dusk away to the North West. It has supplanted the red dots of the turbines on...
Profiting from the Panic – how to use a squeeze in the oil flow to financial advantage
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Oct 4, 2021
Petrol Panic grips the nation. A second week of fuel shortages on the forecourts threatens to hobble the economy, or at least erode support for the Tories in their heartlands and overshadow the Conservative Party Conference. Will queues at the petrol pumps in Manchester crowd the prime minister’s show? The Shell stations in Bolton were...
Training costs: a barrier to transition for offshore workers
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Jun 22, 2021
In September 2020, Platform released a report, OFFSHORE: Oil and gas workers’ views on industry conditions and the energy transition, in collaboration with Friends of the Earth Scotland and Greenpeace UK. The report was the culmination of the first large-scale survey of offshore oil and gas workers in the UK, surveying 1,383 workers (approximately 5%...
Petition for a Just Transition in the North Sea
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Jun 4, 2021
Platform’s Just Transition campaign seeks a well-managed phase out of oil and gas production in the North Sea. This includes preventing future oil and gas licensing rounds, halting fossil fuel subsidies, and most importantly, ensuring that Just Transition measures are implemented during the phase out (i.e. large-scale job creation, re-training and re-skilling, safeguarding worker rights...
Crises, North Sea Oil and Covid-19
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Jun 17, 2020
Last month I spoke on behalf of Platform at an online event on the theme of ‘People Over Profit and Covid-19’ organised by our collaborators Kate and Ryan at Friends of the Earth Scotland. It was a really engaging event with two other speakers followed by breakout groups and a wider discussion afterwards. I looked...
Phasing out North Sea oil – what does it mean for jobs in Scotland?
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Sep 17, 2019
This blog is a version of our presentation of the report Sea Change: Climate Emergency, Jobs, and Managing the Phase-Out of UK Oil and Gas Extraction, at its launch event in Edinburgh on 11 September 2019. An abridged version has appeared in the Herald on Sunday. We know that tackling the climate emergency means...
Silence in the Storm – Business and No Deal Brexit
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Feb 28, 2019
The storm in Westminster rages so ferociously that at times it’s hard to hear ourselves think. There is second by second coverage of the House of Commons and Downing Street from every conceivable angle. Backbenchers so obscure that we’ve never heard of them before are dragged through the TV studios and closely cross-questioned. Others...
There is no magic money tree, except for handouts for BP
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Jul 3, 2017
The UK government paid oil companies $312 million to drill in the North Sea during the fiscal year 2016-2017 according to a new report by the HMRC, The Times reports. Successive UK governments insist “there is no magic money tree” to fund public hospitals and schools, or to insulate cold homes. But apparently the magic...
Today’s oil drilling round could bust us through UK’s climate limits
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Oct 26, 2016
The UK government is pushing a massive new offshore drilling programme, that will take the UK beyond its climate limits. Oil companies had until 2pm today to bid for 1200 blocks covering large swathes of the sea off North-west and North-east Scotland and England. This is the the 29th Offshore Licensing Round, and it aims to identify hundreds of millions in...
Subsidising spills – British public pays BP $300 million to drill and spill
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Oct 7, 2016
BP came under criticism this week when it caused a 95 tonne oil leak from its Clair Field into the North Sea. The company decided not to clear up the spill, and wait for the oil to wash further out to sea. The new spill comes as BP no longer pays net taxes to the...
How to save energy jobs in Scotland: Public ownership, not tax cuts
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Aug 25, 2015
As thousands of North Sea oil workers lose their jobs, helicopter pilots threaten strike action over redundancy arrangements and Unite criticise the oil companies of failing “to plan for a rainy day when the sun shone”, we thought we’d share an extract of this new report. ——————————————————- Extract from “Jobs in Scotland’s New Economy”, published by the Scottish...
