End Fossil Fuels Scotland march in Edinburgh today
  • 7 months ago
End Fossil Fuels Scotland

Cross-organisation mobilisationake place in Edinburgh today, joining the voices of millions of people across the globe.


This September, millions of people around the world will take to the streets to demand a rapid, just, and equitable end to fossil fuels as world leaders gather at the United Nations’ Climate Ambition Summit in New York.

In Scotland, the Edinburgh Climate Coalition and Friends of the Earth Scotland have initiated a mobilisation and series of outreach events in solidarity with the global campaign, gaining support from wider environmental groups, such as Fridays for Future, XR Edinburgh, ScotE3, Greenpeace (Edinburgh), Youth in Resistance and RS21.

The biggest cause of the climate crisis is fossil fuels. The coal, oil and gas industry is responsible for the climate crisis and drives a predatory and destructive economic system that harms people and the planet, fuelling climate breakdown. Fossil fuels are bad for the climate, ecosystems, our people, our health, our democracies, and our economies.

We are facing another winter where people in Scotland can’t afford their energy bills to heat their homes. More oil and gas sold on international markets will not benefit us, what would save us money is a mass roll out of home insulation and investment in cheaper green energy such as wind farms.

In Aberdeen, the oil industry is attempting to land grab and industrialise St Fitticks Park – the last accessible green space available to the people of Torry. The so-called “Energy Transition Zone” proposed by the oil industry is nothing but corporate Greenwashing.

Yet, the UK Government has just announced plans to licence 100 new oil fields in the North Sea, committing us to decades of polluting emissions. The Scottish Government is yet to speak out against the looming Rosebank oil field – the biggest undeveloped oil field in the North Sea, and a new gas power station in Peterhead.

Workers in the offshore oil and gas industry have written a plan for a fair transition to a renewable energy system – it’s time to demand that the UK and Scottish governments take them seriously and put it into action.