Why a North Sea oilfield is emerging as British PM Burnham’s big test

In 2020, Andrea Sanchez Quiroz moved from Edinburgh to her husband’s native Shetland, an archipelago in the North Sea between Scotland and Norway.About 130km (81 miles) from her house lies the United Kingdom’s largest unexploited oil and gas field, known as Rosebank.With Andy Burnham taking office as Britain’s seventh prime minister in a decade, speculation has swirled over whether he might support new North Sea drilling. Reports suggesting he might back exploration — Burnham and his team have not commented on them yet — have led to celebrations from United States President Donald Trump, a longtime advocate of fossil fuel projects.But if Burnham endorses such a move, Sanchez Quiroz is determined to stop it.“I have three children, and I want them to have a stable climate, and fresh water and food available,” she told Al Jazeera.Since 2021, the Shetland resident has been fighting against new oil and gas developments in the North Sea as part of a movement called Shetland Stop Rosebank. She is concerned about the global climate consequences of burning fossil fuels as well as damage to local marine ecosystems, including the protected Faroe-Shetland sponge belt.“As a planet, we are facin...