15th July 2025
Dear Prime Minister,
I write to you as the Chair of the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change, an alliance of 53 UK health organisations including the BMA, Royal Colleges, Associations and Societies representing more than one million health professionals.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared climate change to be the major threat to global health, and the risks become more severe with each increment of a degree in global heating. The climate emergency is a health emergency.
We welcome the new guidance for oil and gas companies that now requires scope 3 emissions to be considered in Environmental Impact Assessments. The climate pollution from burning Rosebank’s 500 million barrels of oil and gas is incompatible with safe climate limits, and any application must be refused.
We have spoken out repeatedly about the need to transition away from fossil fuels and our concerns about Rosebank and Jackdaw. The new guidance for oil and gas companies has come at a critical moment, with new warnings from climate scientists that we are close to breaching liveable climate limits and an urgent call from health professionals for air pollution limits consistent with World Health Organization guidelines.
The health impacts of burning fossil fuels are already being seen, from increasing risk of pregnancy complications and increasing incidence of children with asthma, to greater risk of stroke, acute kidney injury, and premature death in older adults. Our health systems will see increasing patient demand as a consequence of climate change risk factors, and our health infrastructure is at risk from over-heating, flooding and other unpredictable extreme weather events.
We must do all we can to tackle climate change to protect the nation’s health and the NHS. Any new oil and gas fields in the UK would be at odds with the Government’s clean energy and health missions and its commitment to deliver clean power by 2030 and to shift from sickness to prevention.
The UK also has a global obligation to account for cumulative emissions and historical contributions by cutting emissions more rapidly and to meet commitments made at COP28 to transition away from fossil fuels. If the UK consents to new fields, it both weakens its diplomatic standing and threatens the health of millions.
Our recent policy report A Just Transition for the Good of Health outlines the health risks of fossil fuel dependency and the significant benefits for health that will flow from a just transition to clean energy.
Kind regards
Richard Smith CBE FMedSci
Chair, UK Health Alliance on Climate Change