Rob Edwards

Revealed: the £13 billion that RBS puts into polluting industries

from Sunday Herald, 22 August 2010

The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has provided nearly £13 billion worth of funding to the world’s dirty oil and gas industries since it was bailed out by the taxpayer two years ago.

The figures, being revealed today by the Sunday Herald, are the first authoritative and detailed account of the bank’s controversial financing of the companies blamed for causing global warming.

Among the 66 companies backed by RBS are well-known names like BP, Shell, ConocoPhilips, Tullow Oil, Trafigura and Cairn Energy. The bank has helped them raise many hundreds of millions of pounds to finance oil exploration, extraction and development around the world.

To environmental groups and the hundreds of climate protestors currently camped on RBS’s lawn near Edinburgh, the revelations prove that the bank is guilty of an unforgivable crime against the planet.

But to the bank, which does not dispute the figures, they just show that someone has to raise the money to extract the fuels on which we all depend before we can work out how to phase them out.

The singer who wants to save Greenland from oil

for Sunday Herald, 22 August 2010

Simon Lynge is watching his country melt. Every time he goes home to Greenland on the edge of the Arctic, something has gone.

When he was last there in June, the snow had disappeared from the hill, and there were no icebergs in the water. It was 28 degrees centigrade, the hottest he has ever known.

Previously, the drinking water that used to supply Alluitsoq, the small village where he was brought up, ran out. The mountain lakes from which it flowed had evaporated in the heat.

His country is changing so fast that he fears for its future, and he has no doubts what is to blame. “We’re spewing too much carbon dioxide into the air and drilling for more oil makes it worse,” he says.

“To paraphrase an old native American saying: only when the last tree has died, the last river been poisoned, and the last fish been caught, will we realise that we cannot eat money.”

Revealed: BP’s 54 safety breaches in the UK

from Sunday Herald, 27 June 2010

The troubled oil giant, BP, has broken vital health and safety rules 54 times over the past five years in the UK, according to the government watchdog, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).

The British multinational corporation, under international condemnation for its polluting gusher in the Gulf of Mexico, has been accused of a series of maintenance and operating lapses which put workers and the environment at risk from major leaks, fires and accidents in the North Sea and elsewhere.

As a result BP companies have been served with 21 legal enforcement notices since 2006 by HSE, requiring lax and dangerous practices to be improved. The company, however, has not been prosecuted by the watchdog since 2005.

The revelations have been greeted with horror by experts and environmentalists, appalled at BP’s track record in the UK. The company’s failings here are directly linked to the unfolding disaster in the Gulf of Mexico after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig in April, they say.

An analysis of the HSE enforcement database by the Sunday Herald shows that four BP companies - BP Exploration, BP Oil UK, BP Chemicals and BP Shipping - have been hit with legal notices in the last five years. Altogether, there have been 54 breaches of eight health and safety laws or regulations (see table below).

RBS chairman to meet protesters

from Caledonian Mercury, 27 April 2010

The chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), Sir Philip Hampton, is to meet with environment and human rights campaigners this week in an attempt to defuse escalating protests about the bank’s “dirty” investments.

The bank’s annual general meeting (AGM) in Edinburgh on Wednesday has become the target for a wide range of protest groups. They accuse RBS of putting up to £10 billion of public money into fossil fuel and mining projects in Canada, India and elsewhere which wreck the environment and violate human rights.

RBS was bailed out for £45.5 billion by the UK government during the banking crisis and is now 84% owned by British taxpayers. It has argued in the past that it cannot be held responsible for all the actions of the companies in which it invests.

But by agreeing to meet with campaign groups in Edinburgh after the AGM, Hampton may be signalling a new approach. “We are keen to listen to their perspective,” said an RBS spokeswoman.

“We recognise that a broad range of stakeholders have a very legitimate interest in the way that we conduct our business. Although we will not always agree with the many different opinions expressed, we welcome feedback and constructive engagement.”

Protest against RBS investment in ‘bloody oil’

from Sunday Herald, 18 April 2010

George Poitras has come a long way to make his point. From his traditional Mikisew Cree homelands on the shores of Lake Athabasca in northern Alberta, he has journeyed to Murray Place in the centre of Stirling, to confront the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS)

“My people are dying,” he said, “and anyone involved in the tar sands industry must take responsibility for that, including those that help fund it like RBS.”

RBS, which is now 84% owned by taxpayers, stands accused of supplying loans worth nearly £5 billion over the last three years to companies involved in extracting oil from underground tar sands in northern Canada.

The industry is not just dirty oil, it is “bloody oil”, insisted Mr Poitras (46), the former chief of the Mikisew Cree First Nation. He blamed the high rates of cancer amongst his people on toxic pollutants from massive mining operations 240 kilometres upstream. 

Over a hundred people in the small lakeside village of Fort Chipewyan have died from cancer, out of a First Nation population of about 1,200. Studies have suggested that the cancer rate is 43% higher than normal, and some of the cancers are rare varieties linked to contaminants.

Revealed: the oil companies which breached safety rules

from Sunday Herald, 09 March 2008

The oil companies guilty of a series of safety breaches on North Sea rigs have been named and shamed by the government’s health and safety watchdog - but only after a freedom of information request by the Sunday Herald.

In the last three years Shell, Total, BP, Chevron, Maersk and other companies have all faced legal action from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), forcing them to fix flaws in their crucial safety and maintenance systems.

Numerous rules designed to reduce the risk of accidents, fires and explosions to prevent workers from being injured or killed have been broken. Fire doors, valves, and other critical safety equipment have been found to be faulty, and maintenance regimes inadequate.

Scotland's seas under threat from oil development

from Sunday Herald, 02 March 2008

There will be blood, and oil will be to blame. Scotland’s seas, and the teeming wildlife they harbour, are facing one of the biggest dangers they have ever encountered.

A massive new search for oil and gas launched by the UK government will put whales, dolphins and other marine life at risk. And it will jeopardise global attempts to cut the pollution that is causing climate chaos.

Plans to open up virtually all of the seas around the Scottish coast for multinational companies to explore for oil and gas have been greeted with widespread horror by experts and environmentalists.

Forth oil plans cancelled

01 February 2008

Plans to pump millions of tonnes of Russian crude oil between tankers in the Firth of Forth have been abandoned. The harbour company Forth Ports announced this morning that it was not going ahead with the scheme, which has provoked widespread opposition.

"Given the uncertainty surrounding the scope of the proposed project, we have decided that this application is not in the best interests of the company and its shareholders," said Forth Ports chief executive, Charles Hammond.

New move to stop ship-to-ship oil plans

from Sunday Herald, 02 December 2007

Controversial plans to pump millions of tonnes of oil between ships around the UK coast could be prevented by a new law being proposed by a Scottish MP.

This week Mark Lazarowicz, Labour MP for Edinburgh North and Leith, will launch a private member's bill aimed at plugging the loophole which has enabled ship-to-ship oil transfers to escape independent regulation.

Ministers make legal move to stop Forth oil plans

from Sunday Herald, 24 June 2007

Long-disputed plans to pump millions of tonnes of Russian crude oil between tankers in the Firth of Forth now appear doomed.

The Sunday Herald has discovered that a legal change to be put before the Scottish Parliament this week will give ministers new powers to veto developments which threaten protected wildlife areas.

Forth Ports accused of being 'heavy-handed'

from Sunday Herald, 17 June 2007

The harbour company, Forth Ports, has been accused of trying to hamper an environmental assessment of controversial plans for pumping millions of tonnes of oil a year between tankers in the Firth of Forth.

The company had been "very heavy handed", according to the government's conservation agency, Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH). Strict secrecy rules it wanted to impose on SNH officials could have prevented them from advising ministers.

Shareholders ‘concerned’ over oil transfer plan

from Sunday Herald, 29 April 2007

The harbour authority, Forth Ports, has come under pressure from one of its major shareholders over its handling of controversial plans to transfer oil between tankers off the Fife coast.

A major investment company owned by the life and pensions giant, Friends Provident, has told the Sunday Herald that its multi-million pound shareholding in Forth Ports is "under review".

Multinational in Forth oil transfer bid fined for spill

from Sunday Herald, 11 March 2007

The multinational company behind controversial oil plans for the Firth of Forth has been linked to a previously undisclosed pollution incident off the French coast, prompting renewed fears for the safety of the Scottish environment.

The SNP is calling on Skaugen PetroTrans (SPT) to "come clean" about the safety record of its parent companies after it emerged that one of them has been involved in a prolonged dispute with the French authorities over an incident in 2001.

Emergency response to Forth oil spill 'confused'

from Sunday Herald, 11 February 2007

The emergency response to a major oil spill in the Firth of Forth has been exposed as flawed and confused by an official report leaked to the Sunday Herald.

Communication breakdowns and clean-up problems revealed by the latest emergency exercise have re-ignited fears over controversial plans for pumping millions of tonnes of Russian crude oil between tankers in the estuary.

Firth of Forth oil transfer plan is ‘seriously flawed’

from Sunday Herald, 29 October 2006

A risk assessment of the plan to transfer millions of tonnes of Russian oil between ships in the Firth of Forth is so badly flawed that it would breach European law, government advisers have warned.

A confidential environmental report drawn up for the company behind the plan has been savaged by Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) as inaccurate and inadequate because it fails to properly assess the damage that wildlife could suffer from oil spills.

Forth Ports under attack over oil conflict

from Sunday Herald, 01 October 2006

One of Scotland's leading companies, Forth Ports, has come under fierce attack for acting as both the promoter and regulator of a controversial plan to transfer millions of tonnes of Russian oil between ships in the Firth of Forth.

Oil spill insurance 'farcical'

11 September 2006

Insurance cover for accidents while pumping millions of tonnes of Russian crude oil between tankers in the Firth of Forth has been attacked as "farcical".

Legal threat to stop oil transfer plan

from Sunday Herald, 25 June 2006

Local authorities are threatening to take the government to court if it gives the go-ahead to plans to pump millions of tonnes of Russian crude oil between ships in the Firth of Forth.

Report on Forth oil spill risk 'flawed'

from Sunday Herald, 04 June 2006

The risk of a major oil spill in the Firth of Forth while millions of tonnes of Russian crude is pumped between ships is three times higher than predicted, one of the UK's leading risk experts has claimed.

Oil consultation: the joke's on us

comment, 31 May 2006

There are real consultations, sham consultations, and then there's the UK government's consultation over the plan for millions of tonnes of Russian crude oil to be pumped between ships in the Firth of Forth. It's worse than a sham: it's a joke.