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This is made of oil.

This is made of oil.

This is made of oil.

This is made of oil.

This is made of oil.

This is made of oil.

This is made of oil.

This is also made of oil.

TOY PLAYS ARABIAN MUSIC

200 million years ago,
there was land here, not sea.

200 million years ago,

a layer of plants and animals
were squashed under rocks.

These now become oil.

You know, humans have been
on the planet for what,

200,000, 300,000 years?

Modern humans for 10,000 years.

The Industrial Revolution only
started in 1850 and onwards.

And, actually, the fossil
fuel-driven society

has probably really only
been 100 years at most.

It's just a blip in the history
of humankind.

But that blip in the history of
humankind, where we've completely

locked ourselves in
and completely normalised

the huge uses of both energy
and particularly fossil fuels...

..that period is going to
have impacts for centuries

and millennia to come.

It can feel like you're up against
something that's so massive,

that's got the support
of governments

and people who are so much
more powerful than you...

..that it's quite difficult
sometimes

to know what to do to change that.

I think that's basically
what eco anxiety is...

..being constantly worried...

..about whether or not
you're going to have a future.

WIND HOWLS

Somewhere between ten and 20 billion
barrels of oil are still available

in the North Sea.

If all of that was found
and combusted,

so that's going to be somewhere,
very approximately,

between say four and ten billion
tonnes of carbon dioxide.

That is a huge amount
of carbon dioxide

just from, remember, the North Sea,
the UK's North Sea.

Britain has been defined
by the North Sea.

In the beginning, companies
from all around the world

came and invested huge sums
in the search for oil and gas.

Nobody thought that there would be
any oil in the North Sea -

that was just way beyond
the bounds of possibility.

BOAT HORN SOUNDS

In fact, even to a few days
before BP found oil,

the head of BP said
it was an impossibility.

And then, in October 1970,

they found oil in, really,
a massive field,

in the Forties field,

110 miles off to the northeast
of Aberdeen.

Liquid gold.

Call it what you like,
Britain now has oil,

billions and billions
of barrels on it

and it has been quietly lapping
at the doorstep all the time.

I was designing and constructing
offshore oil platforms

with a team of other engineers.

When you're flying into a rig...

..when you look down
at these oil platforms,

sometimes it just made me think,

"This is amazing
that we've managed to do this."

We're drilling thousands of metres
beneath the seabed

in a really hostile
part of the world.

It was a bit like the Apollo project
of the time.

REPORTER: North Sea platforms
need saturation divers.

They are men who have to live
for 30 days at a time

at seabed pressures
of 400 or 500 feet.

Diver back in the bell.

It was like an adventure at first.

You got out there
and just the sheer scale of it,

you know, the enormity of...

..of...

..this island in the middle
of the North Sea...

..with just nothing.

I think there was this idea
that we were in this new industry.

We were developing something
which had never been done before.

And everything you did...

..would benefit the country,
benefit the nation.

We were the pioneers, if you like.

You know, you were breaking
new ground every time

and new wells coming in.

There was this idea that you had
to make the most of it as well

because it wasn't going to
last long.

Suddenly, crofters' and fishermen's
sons and grandsons

are finding stable, well-paid jobs.

It means things like
foreign holidays

and car ownership

and forms of consumption that
are themselves oil-related.

There was a perception that
Britain's or Scotland's oil

was being exploited
for private gain.

In 1974, there were two
general elections.

The SNP stood on a platform
of saying, "This is your chance,

"perhaps your last chance, to claim
ownership of these resources."

By some estimates,
it could have made Scotland

one of the richest economies
in Europe or the world.

There's a time coming...

And the argument was, if Scotland
didn't achieve independence,

then the UK government
was going to extract this oil

as quickly as possible
under pretty favourable terms

for the multinationals.

At the time, I think we owned
about 60% or 70% of BP.

We also created the British
National Oil Corporation.

But the whole Thatcher ideology
of let the markets run it

and give it over to the market,
so all of that's sold.

Compare that to virtually
any country in the world,

apart from the States, I think,
who have all got nationalised

corporations of some kind,

but obviously the standout one
is Norway -

I say that because it's a
comparative size to Scotland

and it's probably the richest
country in the world.

The government set about
dividing up the sea into blocks...

..and selling off the national sea

to international companies such
as BP and Shell and ExxonMobil,

which is based in the US, and
selling off to them the rights

of drilling in the North Sea
for oil and gas.

So companies, they'll bid
for certain blocks

and then the licenses
are awarded by the government

and sometimes there will be certain
commitments with those licenses.

So you have to do X number of wells
by a certain point and then,

you know, thereafter you have to
come up with development plans

of how you're going to actually...

..what you're going to do
with the licenses.

So, you know, it's a fairly...fairly
straightforward process.

I think people absolutely are very
concerned about climate change,

as we are as a sector,

but, if we kind of knee jerk
one way or the other,

I think what will happen is we
will see people losing their jobs,

we will see communities being
left behind, and that's not

what we think we should be
working towards as a sector.

And that's certainly not our aim
with our...

..with the road map that
we've put in place,

and now with the North Sea
Transition Deal

that we've negotiated
with the government.

In 2021, the government
and the oil industry set up

the North Sea Transition Deal,

which was basically driven
by two fundamental pressures -

falling oil prices and rising
public concern about the climate.

" 'As part of the UK's shift
towards green energy,

" 'through our landmark
North Sea Transition Deal,

" 'we are backing the
decarbonisation of the oil and gas
sector

" 'to support high value jobs and
safeguard the skills necessary

" 'to develop new low carbon
industries across the country,'

"said a spokesperson."

I mean, that doesn't really
make sense

because, I mean, they're talking
about decarbonising

the oil and gas sector.

It's like, you can't decarbonise
oil and gas.

It's just... Yeah, I don't know.

They're saying a lot of fancy words
that really don't mean anything.

In 2015, Parliament basically passed
an amendment to the Petroleum Act

that means that the government
has a duty to maximise

economic recovery of offshore
oil and gas resources.

I'm not paraphrasing -
that's what the statute says.

The UK's former Chancellor,
Philip Hammond,

in 2017, he said in a speech,

"We are working with industry to
extract every drop of oil and gas

"that it is economic to extract."

We say between ten to 20 billion
barrels of oil

are still out there
for us to get after.

Erm, and...

And even that, you know...

Yeah, so... Which represents
a massive opportunity for us.

Effectively, we're living inside
an oil machine.

One of the foundations
of the cultures

that have developed around oil
is the assumption that energy

will be easy to access
and freely available and cheap.

BP was very involved in helping
to build a significant part

of what we have
in the North Sea today.

The Forties field was one
of the most significant fields.

We used to operate around 22
different fields platforms

a few years ago,
now we operate about six.

We are comfortably
the largest producer...

..in the North Sea.

We had a number of licences
for a relatively small company.

We then did a transformative deal
with Shell,

bought a big chunk
of their UK business,

and immediately transformed
ourselves

into a very material operator.

And, at the moment, we're the most
active driller in the North Sea,

producing 1.6, 1.7 million
barrels a day.

We go through about 1.5 million
barrels of oil a day in the UK.

If we just take one part
of the North Sea,

the Forties pipeline system,

it's arguably one of the largest
machines in Western Europe,

or possibly the world,
and that machine constitutes

all the platforms and all the oil
wells and all the pipeline system.

It drains oil from right over
on the edge of the UK sea limit,

or from the Brae field
or the Montrose field,

through the Forties
pipeline system....

..until it lands on the shore
just north of Aberdeen.

And that is one continuous system

running all the way
across the seabed...

..under the fields and forests
and rivers.

One piece of clockwork.

One big machine.

In effect, we're living
with that constantly running

24 hours a day,
365 days a year.

Until finally it gets
to the west of Edinburgh...

..where it comes to
Grangemouth refinery,

and it also goes to an oil terminal
at a place called Hound Point.

At Grangemouth, it's refined
and it's turned into

a whole plethora
of different products.

So petrol, aviation, fuel,
diesel and even tarmac,

it's turned into that.

And, you know, in some ways
it's a massively impressive feat

of engineering that oil
is extracted in the North Sea...

..and then transported by pipeline
into the middle of Scotland,

and then distributed across much of
Scotland and the north of England.

Erm... But that comes at a cost.

I really wanted to get involved
with the issues that are happening

right around me

because it's important that we are
involved in the things that happen

right around us, as well as the
stuff that's going on globally,

because it's all really connected.

As a medic,
I care so deeply about health

and I think that, from this lens
of health, we can actually achieve

a climate just or a
better world for all of us.

Because when we realise that health,
well, that the fossil fuel industry

is impacting health in different
ways and pollution in the air

is impacting health, and therefore,
if we stop this polluting,

we also increase health.

I have lived experience
of this plant here.

This plant stole my oxygen...

..and it made me suffocate,

suffocate so much...

The Mossmorran Natural Gas Liquids,
NGL, plant is part of the northern

North Sea Brent oil and gas field
system and is located

on the outskirts
of Cowdenbeath, Scotland.

There's so much flaring
from this gas plant that it means

that local people, like, can't sleep
well because of how bright it is.

In fact, the impact of Mossmorran
and what's happening there and the

impact of the North Sea oil and
gas industry on our health

and on our communities only serves
to allow these things to continue

and to continue to cause harm,

so I think that that's why
we need to draw these connections.

There's a new oil and gas project,
which is set to be licensed

in the Cambo Field,
which is in the North Sea.

It's one of the biggest North Sea
oil fields that's ever been found.

So we're here to point out
the hypocrisy of approving

this new field just after the IEA
have said that we cannot approve

and we cannot invest
in new oil and gas.

CHANTING

The International Energy Agency,
they are very conservative, usually,

so the fact that they're saying no
new oil and gas is a very big deal.

A lot of this new climate policy
that's being put in, it feels

very performative because a lot
of the actions that are happening

are still protecting the
oil and gas industry.

It does come into question how much
we are like living in democracy.

How much our politicians
are actually representing us

or how much they're representing
big business.

The government came out and said,
"Yes, licensing will continue

"because we do need oil and gas
activity to continue in the basin

"if we are to satisfy the demand
that we know is going to continue.

"So, you know, better to have it
with your home-grown sector

"on your doorstep, supporting
the jobs, not offshoring

"your emissions, not having to
import the gap that would emerge

"if you didn't continue to produce."

What they wanted to make sure
was that, as they go forward

and that for every licensing
round that does come up,

that it is still in line
with the Paris commitments

and their net zero targets for 2050.

We can point to £350 billion
in taxes paid for production

and that doesn't even take
into account the associated

supply chain taxes that are
generated and the jobs

that are generated off that.

LOUD BANG

By the mid 1980s, the British
Exchequer was receiving a huge

amount of cash from revenue
from the North Sea...

..which, of course, was used
to pay for everything -

roads, schools and so on.

In London, the
global finance centre for oil

had begun to be developed
since the '50s.

This flourished on the back
of UK North Sea oil as well.

It became an engine driving
forward the UK finance sector.

And that cash flowed into
the pension system as well.

Increasingly, UK pensions became
linked to shares in BP and Shell.

And, indeed, by the 2000s,

about 30% of any major portfolio
of pension funds

was in these two companies combined.

It's not just about
the jobs in the industry,

it's the spin-off of that wealth.

People need a shop, people go out,
people eat, people spend money,

people buy things,

that's how the cascade works.

The market, let's say the
London Stock Exchange,

markets are considered to be amoral

because they are,
they're not a person.

The market is a collection
of thousands of activities happening

by individual investors making
decisions on behalf of other people.

It's considered amoral
because it's a machine.

It's not an individual.

Amoral is different to immoral,
remember.

If you're an investor, return on
equity is the thing that matters -

it tells you how
profitable a business is.

A return on equity for the
fossil fuel sector 20 years ago,

double digits, absolutely.
100%, the norm.

Today, return on equity
is struggling to get to 5% and 6%.

Some of the fossil fuel firms,
they're in what's called a

secular decline, arguably, already.

North Sea oil is a commodity,

it's an asset against which
an enormous amount of debt

has been leveraged.

And the question is, does
the asset maintain its value?

Does oil maintain its price?

And that really matters,
because if it fails

to maintain its value then the debt
leveraged against that asset

is going to become unpayable.

Conversely, the return on equity
for offshore wind...

..is about 11%...

..onshore wind about ten

and onshore solar about 9%.

So you're already generating
more return on equity

from putting your capital
into the renewable energy space.

The question is, can it take as much
capital as is currently

in the fossil fuel sector?

Those who own investments
in North Sea oil have to believe

that it will continue and maintain
its value as an asset.

And the question is, when does
the value of the asset fall?

COMPUTER BEEPS AND WHIRS

And when the price of oil falls,

then oil becomes a stranded asset.

We have to reimagine the economy.

The way we've constructed it right
now means that it's incredibly

unstable and prone to crashes.

If you look at the
London Stock Exchange

and you look at the implied
temperature change of all

the companies that are listed there,

particularly the
oil and gas companies,

that we have three and a half
degrees of change embedded

in the London Stock Exchange.

It's one of the worst exchanges
in the world because it's where many

of the world's largest
oil and gas companies list...

..which means that people's
pensions,

savings and investments in the UK

are actually invested in financing
a future that no-one wants to see,

but no-one really realises.

People tend to be ignorant
about money because finance

is quite complicated.

And because it's been functioning
by and large reasonably well

for so long, there's been this
paternalistic culture

that's enabled people to just say,

"It's OK, don't worry,
it's all working."

Whereas, actually, it's not.

We need to now rapidly raise our
collective understanding of banking,

insurance and investment,
particularly investment,

and particularly where you own
companies that are undermining

the future that we wish
to bequeath to our children.

Angel Gurria, when he was
the Secretary-General of the OECD,

talked about carbon entanglement.

What he meant was,
when you had ministers

from the environmental department

coming to UN meetings and pledging
to stop certain activity,

let's say drilling...

..and then they would return home
to find that the chancellor

of their exchequer
wasn't prepared to stop that...

..because the amount of revenue
that the Exchequer received

through the tax that was charged on
the fossil fuel when it was sold...

..that that level of entanglement
of economic activity meant that

we couldn't simply stop
the thing that needed to stop...

..because, in stopping that...

..all other things would stop, too.

I think that my predictions

beyond 2050 are difficult to make...

..and the reason I say this
is because I don't believe

the global economy will be
functioning the way it is today

unless we make big, big changes
over the next five to ten years

to manage the disaster that's
just around the corner.

A series of crises that will begin
unfolding after mid-century

is going to mean the
end of the global economy.

I believe that what we do
over the next five years,

and the "we" in that sentence refers
to humanity,

will determine the future of
humanity for the next millennium.

I think people will look back
on this era of oil and just think

about how ridiculous it was.

How could you know about
such a massive issue

and still worry more about profit?

It feels a bit surreal in a way.

WAVES ROAR

The whole issue of climate change
became quite relevant,

and there was a lot of discussions
around that in the late '80s

and the early '90s, and it wasn't
something I knew a lot about,

so I decided to go back to
university to try and find something

out about climate change,

and so I decided in the end
to leave the oil industry.

When we burn oil and gas,
or indeed any fossil fuel,

it's made up of two
principal elements -

one's carbon and one's hydrogen.

That carbon combusts with the oxygen
in the atmosphere.

And now, of course, we're burning
all of this fossil fuel so rapidly.

Remember, these are fossil fuels
that were laid down by trees

and by other plants
over millions of years.

We're taking them all out of
the ground and almost overnight

releasing all of that carbon
back out into the atmosphere,

this carbon dioxide, through
the combustion in our car engines

and our power stations.

So very, very deliberately,
as part of market ideology,

is the idea that we can't allow
democracies or governments or states

to regulate or to manage the
production and the extraction

of finite assets -

this has to be left to something
called the invisible hand.

And if the invisible hand decides
that in a world of climate breakdown

it's necessary to churn out more
fossil fuels, then the invisible

hand will actually disadvantage
the public and governments

and, indeed, that is
what is happening now.

Once the crude gets to a
refinery like Grangemouth...

..it's made into lots of things like
petrol, aviation fuel and tarmac.

It's also made into this
substance called naphtha,

which is the sort of, a basis that
you would use to make plastics.

You then put it into a petrochemical
plant and you make other stuff

out of it, such as ethylene.

And then that ethylene is made
into other stuff such as PVC.

And that is plastic as we know it.

When you burn a gallon of petrol,
it goes into the atmosphere

pretty quickly. When you turn it
into a plastic toy and that's used

for a bit and then thrown away,
it stays in a landfill

for many hundreds of years...

..possibly thousands of years.

And then there are tiny bits
of plastic, microplastics,

which are in everything.

The water from the tap,
in rivers and in seas,

and even in our
human tissues and organs

and in the tissues of other animals.

And all those bits of plastic
at some point

came out of an oil well.

And it wasn't so recently.

Plastics weren't really being used
until the '60s in any major way.

Since signing the Paris Agreement
in 2016, the UK Government has given

£4 billion of public money
to North Sea oil and gas companies.

That is a huge amount of money
that should be being used for

public good and is instead propping
up these big, polluting,

harmful companies.

I heard about a case that was
happening that was taking the

UK Government to court around these
subsidies and around the new policy

that had been created by
the Oil and Gas Authority,

which basically allows for the
promotion of oil and gas production.

I feel like I got to a point
where I was so desperate

about - what should I do?
What can I do?

I'm taking the UK Government
to court to pull the plug

on public payments
for big polluters.

The world is moving away
from an oil and gas economy

to a lower carbon economy,

so we, BP, intend to be part
of that transition.

So I think, if we, if we didn't make
the move, we wouldn't exist.

We will be taking carbon emissions
from heavy industry

that is based in the Teesside area

and sequestering that
in reservoirs offshore.

We'll be using the same
very similar expertise

to what we've used with our oil
and gas production

to capture that material
and inject it.

The oil industry has traditionally
been full of people

who love solving problems.

That's why people become engineers,

because they want to build
big things and do stuff,

and that doesn't matter
whether you're a woman or a man.

It's that challenge
in your mind that you love -

and this is another challenge.

In 20 years' time, I would love
in the UK that we're still producing

the same level, the same level
of hydrocarbons that we're producing

now, but with a net,
with a net zero footprint.

So we often hear this language now,
particularly of net zero.

So what really is it? We need to
sort of understand what it is.

And, actually, from a purely
scientific point of view,

it makes some sort of sense.

The idea is that we have to get
to a point where the emissions

we put into the atmosphere
are balanced by those

that are removed
from the atmosphere.

So what we put out is balanced
by what is taken back in.

And we then give it like a year,

so at some point in the future,
always a long way away,

so something like 2050.

In 2050, we will have this net zero,
where we'll have found a way

to balance our emissions, which are
still quite significant then,

with sinks that absorb the carbon
dioxide back into the atmosphere.

We are setting up a carbon capture
business of which may ultimately

take some of the CO2 that we produce
from a hydrogen process

and then we will store that carbon
in underground reservoirs,

depleted gas fields, where we
produce the hydrocarbons from there.

We know the history,
we know the structure.

Actually, the UK could be
in a really robust position

for carbon capture with the
spin-offs for potentially

supply chain benefits,
exporting some of those skills

to other countries.

We have very few working examples
of carbon capture and storage

on power stations.

I've got colleagues that have been
working on this for 20 years.

There is currently no operational
carbon capture and storage, CCS,

capacity in the UK or Europe.

All estimates are that there
won't be in the next decade,

and the next decade really matters.

So it's absolutely no excuse
to continue expanding oil and gas

infrastructure on the assumption
that we can bring down

those emissions using that
technology in the next few years.

It's just, it's not going to happen.

We will maintain some level of oil
and gas production over time,

but we're hugely ramping up our
investments in non oil and gas

forms of energy as well.

We're about to get into a ScotWind
leasing process.

That, the process itself to actually
acquire the leases, takes time.

From the point at which
wind leases are acquired

to when wind farms are installed

is normally a period
of about ten years.

We will do everything we can
to compress that period

and make it faster.

But it's almost, just the realities
of what happens is these...

What we are talking about is
changing the infrastructure

of the world - that takes time.

For decades, the world
has been built on

a hydrocarbon-based infrastructure.

Maybe a good analogy would be

it's almost like replacing
all the veins in the human body.

I guess we have an addiction to
oil and gas in our society

and that's why we need to work
thoughtfully

as to how we move forward.

Just to stop it for the
sake of stopping it

isn't going to stop the demand
that's associated with it.

Everything we use
has an oil base virtually in it.

You know, from your shoes,
the tyres on the electric car,

or the iPhone. I think the iPhone's
got about six litres of oil

used in its manufacture.

Your waterproof jacket,
which we all need here in Scotland,

there's hydrocarbon in it.

You know, you're going to need it.

So having a go at North Sea oil
and gas production...

..in itself, I think, is unfair.

People in the oil industry
and just people in general have a go

at environmentalists for, you know,
using phones and buying shoes.

If people think you're a hypocrite,

they're not going to listen
to what you have to say

and, I mean, that is exactly
what the fossil fuel industry wants.

It takes the pressure off of them
and onto everyday people

whose individual actions
in the grand scheme of things

is tiny compared to the actions of
massive fossil fuel corporations.

We need to start talking
about this as a systemic problem

and not as an individual problem.

There's no real consumer choice
around the fact that we live in

an energy infrastructure that means
we have to use oil and gas

currently because other
alternatives are not being promoted.

This is not made of oil.

This is not made of oil.

This is not made of oil.

This is not made of oil.

This is not made of oil.

This is not made of oil.

I think we've been hearing
that the oil and gas company

is the answer to our future
energy needs for decades

and the fact is that their
investment in renewable energy

is a vanishingly small proportion
of their overall investment.

The Oil and Gas Authority,
if you open up their website

or indeed go to their Twitter
account, that's what they say,

"We're there to maximise oil and gas
production," and they help

the government meet its net zero.

That demonstrates to me absolutely
clearly how net zero

is basically a front for an
incrementally greenwashed

business as usual.

It delays any real action.

It relies on technologies
that are either highly speculative

or in only very small pilot schemes
at the moment to remove

carbon dioxide from the atmosphere,
hundreds of billions of tonnes

of carbon dioxide, not small
quantities, out in the future.

And when I say "we're"
going to remove it,

not us, our children
and our children's children.

BIRD CRIES

There are several parts
of Fort William that are threatened

with flooding, and this will include
the main roads

and the main rail lines between
Fort William and Glasgow...

..and that means that there's
going to be a transport problem

in the future, and food supplies
might cut out at some point.

In 50 years' time,
if nothing changes,

the water levels
could rise to 40 centimetres.

Already this winter, it flooded
right up to where I'm sitting

and the road had to be closed.

If the road up to the
high school could be closed,

how could the children get to
school?

Well, in 50 years' time, I'm worried
that there won't be the same type

of wildlife as there is right now
because of climate change.

Ullapool's like a fishing village,

so then, if the
smaller fish die out,

then the bigger fish
won't have anything to eat,

and that's kind of like
the same as puffins

that live around the
coastal areas of Scotland.

They could be affected by climate
change, if the temperature rises

and the sea levels rise,

because then that would make the
smaller fish swim away

to places that are cooler
or further north.

Puffins will die of starvation if
they don't sort something out soon.

This bridge could be
completely underwater.

The SEC behind us,
where they're holding COP26,

that's going to be
completely destroyed.

There are so many things happening
in the world right now that...

..I'm honestly not sure I could face

bringing even like a child
into the world.

If we don't make the change now,
we never will.

It's actually so much closer
than a lot of us are actually

willing to believe...

..and that's quite terrifying.

Adults have made their life choices.
They've got their career

and they've, you know, sometimes
they have a family,

they have a house, and it's not
going to impact their lives

in the same way it will impact us
because, you know,

what career am I going to have
based off of this

and where am I going to live?

And what food am I going
to be able to eat?

DUCK QUACKS

We're going to have several metres
of sea level rise already locked in

and, since Edinburgh is on the
coast,

that poses a pretty severe threat
to lots of areas around here.

Everything would be under water,

the Ocean Terminal mall, the pub
at the end of the road over there,

everything.

It's not even that far
in the future,

like, I'll maybe just be starting
retirement.

Even if we feel
like it's in the distant future,

areas I go all the time will not be,
they won't even exist any more.

THEY CHANT: BP, Shell,
take your oil and go to hell.

ExxonMobil, BP, Shell,
take your oil and go to hell.

ExxonMobil, BP, Shell,
take your oil...

The things I am most worried
about is the future

for children aged 15,

children aged three, four, five.

They will presumably expect to be
alive by the end of the century.

And, at the moment, that is really
not looking like the sort of place

you'd like to live in.

So what we are seeing
is a major disturbance

in the global weather system,

but much more serious is what is
happening to that ice on Greenland.

As the ice melts,
it enters the ocean

and there's enough ice there
that, when it's all melted,

sea levels globally will rise by
an average of 7.5 metres,

24 feet...

..and we will not recognise
the world when that has happened.

And, quite frankly,
I believe this is already happening

towards that final level
of 24 feet sea level rise.

WATER ROARS

The Paris Agreement says that
1.5 degrees should be our aim

and the fact that we're heading much
more rapidly towards 3.5 degrees

should be a grave concern
for everybody.

SHOUTING

My family is still mostly
in Bangladesh

and I see it as,
I guess in my case,

a very personal example
of the deep injustice

at the heart of the climate crisis.

As a country, it's done so little
historically to contribute

to the amount of carbon
that's in the atmosphere

and it's done so little to cause
the climate crisis,

and yet people there will be bearing
the impact, already are

overwhelmingly living
with the impacts

that we're currently experiencing
of climate change.

A half a metre sea level rise
by 2050,

we will see the...
Everyone knows Bangladesh,

two thirds of the country
under water.

It's expected that tens of
millions...

I think one estimate
is that 30 million people

will have to emigrate

as a result
of the impacts of climate change.

Vietnam, 90% of the country
under water, sea water

at least once a year by 2050,
in 30 years' time.

The Mekong Delta region
is the biggest series

of rice paddy fields in the world.

By the time we get to mid-century,
rice production will collapse.

At 3.5 degrees, roughly
74% of the world's population

cannot live where they do today

because the midday summer air
temperature will be too hot

for the body to be able to function.

The body's inner organs
will start to collapse.

We are looking, by mid-century,

possibly at 100 million
climate refugees

from that part of the world,
possibly 200, 300 million...

..and that'll be happening
around the world.

We have to defossilise the global
economy as quickly as we can.

PLANE ROARS PAST

CHANTING

In my view, there are many reasons
to be deeply critical

of the whole COP process.

The most dangerous voice there was
that from the fossil fuel industry

and, remember, that industry is not
always a private sector voice -

it's often the voice
of the governments.

A lot of the oil companies
are owned by the governments,

so the governments themselves
are in effect the oil companies

in many parts of the world.

So whilst tens of thousands,
hundreds of thousands of protesters

and civil society activists
and wider society

is kept at arm's reach...

..the fossil fuel lobbyists are
right in there with the negotiators

before COP and during COP.

They're in the governments.
They're part of the governments.

They're part of the DNA of the COP.

And then we stand back saying,
"Oh, look, there's hardly anything

"about the fossil fuel industry and
how we have to rapidly faze it out

"within the agreements that come
out of these COPS."

And Glasgow, again,
was just the same.

They're in and out of the
ministries far more than,

I think there's some evidence that
suggests nine or ten times

more often than you get people
from the renewables coming in there,

and they've been doing this
again for decade after decade.

The fact is that, if we were about
to be hit by a meteorite,

if the country was about
to be hit by a meteorite,

the government would do everything
possible to prevent

that happening immediately.

It wouldn't say, "Oh, let's wait
for the private sector to come up

"with a plan and
a managed transition

"before the moment of impact."

Right? We can't afford to do that.

The urgency of the climate crisis
is not entirely unlike

the threat we would face if we were
to be hit by a meteorite.

And, therefore, we cannot rely on
self-serving capital gains-making

shareholders in oil companies
for that transition.

METALLIC CLANKING

We need to decommission properly.

There are certain obligations
that we're under

and as a sector we want to make sure
that we do tidy up after ourselves.

So we decommission, we do it safely,
we do it efficiently,

we do it cost-effectively, and we do
it with an environmental...head on.

The industry is liable
for all the costs

associated with decommissioning.

The way that the tax regime works
in this country for oil and gas

companies is that they can claim
costs that they incur

from decommissioning oil and gas
assets, which is another way

of saying cleaning up the mess
that they've created.

You know, it's disassembling rigs,
making sure that there isn't a whole

lot of toxic sludge left behind,
the sort of clean-up

that all polluting industries
have to do

when they exit from that industry.

But if you're an oil and gas
company, the UK taxpayer

pays about 50% of the costs
of decommissioning.

All companies in the sector
benefit from that tax regime

and it means that,
whether they're a British company

or a foreign company,
they are not making a contribution

to the British economy in terms
of the money that they contribute

to the public purse, and they are
benefiting from taxpayer dollars.

The UK's Office of National
Accounts has estimated

that over the next few decades
we are on the hook

for £18 billion
in decommissioning costs.

It's the kind of arrangement that
no other industry benefits from.

We need to transition. We need to
get the manufacturing site onshore.

For decommissioning oil and gas,

we could recycle the steel and we
could build jackets for turbines.

We could build the turbines.

Right now, the future of North Sea
oil

is in the hands of
the investment houses.

As the oil and gas depletes
in the UK now,

the majors aren't making enough
quick enough,

and as their assets get older
they've got to spend more money

on them and they don't want
to be doing that either.

So what we've got now are...

..investment houses
looking to make a quick buck.

As we move forward with the
whole climate debate,

you're going
to see these investment houses

being exposed and attacked for
continuing to invest in oil and gas.

These investment houses are going
to think twice and a lot of them

are just going to pull the plug.

And if they pull the plug...

..that ends operations here.

That shuts it down.

Oil and gas workers
now are very worried

about what the future
holds for them.

The technology, the ability, the
core skills, the infrastructure,

the supply chain companies,
they're all here.

They can all deliver

on what we need to do
in the renewable sector,

whether it's carbon capture,
whether it's hydrogen production.

We can do it all...

..given the chance.

You see, the big oil companies,

they're now beginning to sell up
and move away...

..and in their place come a whole
range of much smaller companies.

So those are private equity
companies who are owned by

private individuals based in,
say, for example, Switzerland

or the USA or Russia.

And then also state-owned companies,

such as Malaysia, Abu Dhabi,

but also China and Iran.

The Chinese National
Offshore Oil Company

has three major oil fields
in the North Sea -

Telford and Golden Eagle
and Buzzard.

Buzzard is the highest producing
oilfield in the UK North Sea,

so China has an increasingly
important role to play

in the future of this area

and that's an important thing
when we think about how much control

do we as British citizens have over
the future of the North Sea.

If, say, for example, people
in Scotland say, "We don't want

"that oil exploited because of
climate change or whatever,"

then the UK would have to compensate

the Chinese National Oil Company,
and effectively the Chinese state,

for tearing up the contract
that it's made with it...

..which means that it is more and
more removed from government control

and democratic control
and public scrutiny.

DISTANT HORN BLARES

About two thirds of the oil that we
produce is being exported

to countries such as China
and the US,

and not used to be refined here,
on the UK mainland...

..which undermines the argument
that this is important

for UK energy security.

WAVES ROAR

I think we'll look back
on this era as the good old days

before everything goes insane,
and we can't even stop it any more.

And I think there is going to be a
lot of resentment from future

generations because we really
are at the last point

where we can change things.

And if we don't, I don't think
the future generations

are ever really going to be able
to forgive us.

Yeah, they're going to blame us

and we're not even the ones
in control here.

We have been consistently wrong
about the scale at which renewables

have become competitive.

The price of solar has dropped
by 80% in the last decade.

Nobody, including the world's
leading energy forecasters,

saw that coming.

So to continue to lock in
our dependency on oil and gas,

because we think that in 30 years'
time we might still need it

is a huge mistake.

Compared with digging deep beneath
the North Sea to produce this,

you know, quite
challenging material...

..to then pipe it day after day,
year after year,

decade after decade, the huge
refineries that then convert this

black goo into all sorts of amazing
products, one way or another,

that we've managed to do that
is incredible.

And then you look at the renewable
industry now that's developing -

it looks so much simpler
than this oil industry

that we've completely normalised.

And I look at the skills
that we have offshore,

that degree of sort of, you know,
engineering

understanding and so forth,

you think, if we applied that to the
renewables,

we could deliver a renewable

renaissance, or a new renewable
conversion from fossil fuels,

far more quickly than we ever built
with the fossil fuel industry.

We need every institution of
finance, be they insurers

or fund managers or banks,
the OECD, the World Bank, the IMF,

we all need to work collectively
to make sure that we rebase global

economic growth so that it's no
longer powered by fossil fuels.

If we don't deliver that,
then civilisation itself is at risk.

I know that sounds hyperbolic,
but it is a fact.

PLANE ENGINES ROAR

Oil was discovered in 1859 -

at that time, there were about
800 whaling vessels in the world...

..and that was how we powered
lights in cities - whale oil.

About ten years later, half
of that whaling fleet was worthless

because nobody needed
the whales any more.

It's going to take a lot longer,

but the rigs of today can be equated
to the whaling vessels

of 150 years ago.

This period of burning
the fossil fuels,

of really taking what has been
millions and millions of years

of laying down the carbon
through natural processes

and suddenly releasing it,
virtually overnight,

but that's a very short timeframe.

So to assume that we can't live
as humans without fossil fuels

completely misunderstands
that we have done so in the past...

..and that we will have to
in the future.

We're embedded in the physical realm
of the oil machine,

but we're also embedded in the
emotional world of that.

It makes the way we think
and it makes the way we feel.

The difficulties of
getting out of oil

is that it feels like life
is going to be more deprived...

..and we're frightened of that.

Our desires are often made possible
by a level of energy consumption.

WATER GURGLES

We've been in the phase of oil.

We have to go beyond it.

We have to find a way out
the other side of it.

That will lead us to
learning new ways of being.