In authorising the Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gas fields, the British government failed to properly assess their climate impact.
When it gave the green light to the development of the Rosebank and Jackdaw hydrocarbon fields, both in Scotland, the UK government failed to take into account their climate impact. In particular, it overlooked the emissions resulting from the burning of oil and gas. The production licences are therefore no longer valid. That is the ruling of the Court of Session, Scotland's supreme civil court, based in Edinburgh. It sided with environmental organisations Uplift and Greenpeace UK, which had launched this legal battle.
At the centre of attention are two fossil fuel extraction projects. Jackdaw is a natural gas field in the North Sea, east of Aberdeen. It is operated by Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell and its potential amounts to around 6.5 per cent of the UK's natural gas production. It received the green light from the British government in the summer of 2022, when the prime minister was Boris Johnson.
Larger and better known, Rosebank is instead operated by Norwegian company Equinor. It lies to the north of the Shetland Islands and, with an estimated 300–500 million barrels of oil, is the largest undeveloped hydrocarbon field in the UK. The project was approved by Rishi Sunak, also a Conservative prime minister, who succeeded Boris Johnson following the very brief tenure of Liz Truss. According to the original timeline, production was set to begin in 2026 at Jackdaw and between 2026 and 2027 at Rosebank.
Environmental organisations Uplift and Greenpeace UK, however, did not stand idly by. They took the matter to court, with a precise line of argument: in giving the green light to the two projects, the government had only taken into account the emissions linked to the extraction of oil and gas — not those arising from their entire lifecycle, including combustion (what is technically known as Scope 3). Emissions that are incompatible with the climate commitments the United Kingdom has formally undertaken. The court ruled in their favour.
The ball now passes back to the British government, which has already begun the process of revising its environmental guidelines, due to be published in spring. Until then, the two fossil fuel companies will be able to continue carrying out preparatory work on the installations, but will have to resubmit their authorisation requests and await the outcome before extraction can begin in earnest. This means that the final word has not yet been spoken on Rosebank and Jackdaw. What is certain is that the interlocutor this time is a government of the opposite political persuasion which, partly in order to send a strong signal of discontinuity, had already chosen not to defend itself in these proceedings.
