STICK to the spirit of Labour’s manifesto commitments, climate campaigners told the Prime Minister as the public consultation on Rosebank closes on Monday.

Stop Climate Chaos Scotland (SCCS) demanded Andy Burnham block proposed new North Sea oil fields, claiming their lifetime carbon emissions could result in up to 65,495 excess heat deaths by the end of this century.

Made up of more than 70 organisations with a total of about one million supporters, SCCS wrote an open letter to Mr Burnham and his Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh ahead of the consultation closure for Rosebank, the largest untapped oil field in the North Sea which lies some 80 miles north-west of Shetland.

A similar exercise for the planned Jackdaw gas field, which lies in waters about 150 miles east of Aberdeen, finished on August 10.

Production for both fields had been approved by the previous Conservative government, but a legal challenge from Greenpeace has now left the current government to decide whether or not drilling should go ahead.

SCCS reminded the new PM, who recently issued a temporary ban on the sale of disposable barbecues and brought in the military to help deal with wildfires, that 2,700 excess deaths were linked to heatwaves in May and June alone.

Any decision on Rosebank and Jackdaw closely follows a “devastating wildfire” in the Cairngorms National Park this summer which “required a major and sustained emergency response.”

Signed by Friends of the Earth Scotland, the Environmental Rights Centre Scotland and Fuel Poverty Action, it warned the “consequences of climate change are already being felt, through more extreme heat, drought, wildfires and growing risks to food insecurity.”

And they said new drilling would have “consequences for the UK’s international climate leadership,” adding that Britain’s credibility and any progress made on emissions reductions “will be undermined.

“By contrast, investing in clean, home-grown renewable energy can strengthen energy security while creating secure, long-term jobs that benefit individuals and communities and are not dependent on the volatility of global fossil fuel markets.”

The Department of Energy Security and Net Zero said that “oil and gas will continue to play an important role in our energy system for decades to come, alongside transitioning to clean power to protect jobs and tackle the climate crisis.”