UK government will not fight Rosebank legal challenge

What has happened? 

The government has just announced that it will not defend legal challenges against Rosebank. It agreed that the decision made by the previous government to approve this huge oil field was unlawful.
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This is a huge win for a liveable climate and a massive step in stopping Rosebank for good. 
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In December last year, Uplift and Greenpeace filed separate legal challenges to the government’s decision to approve Rosebank. Both cases argue that the previous government ignored the massive climate pollution – estimated to be more than 200 million tonnes of CO2 – that will inevitably result from burning Rosebank’s oil reserves. To put this into context, this is more CO2 than all the world’s 28 lowest income countries produce in a year.

This government, along with the regulator that signed off Rosebank’s approval, has now recognised that Rosebank cannot proceed without taking into account the full extent of the damage it will do to our climate. 

This follows a landmark Supreme Court ruling (Finch v Surrey County Council) in June this year, which requires decision-makers to consider the impact of scope 3 emissions in the Environmental Impact Assessment for new projects. This means they need to assess the impact of not just the emissions created from producing oil and gas but the emissions that will inevitably result from burning it. 

It’s not yet clear if Rosebank’s owners, Equinor and Ithaca, will defend the case or not. The legal challenge will still move through the Scottish courts, but the government’s concession makes it even more likely that the original decision to approve Rosebank will be declared unlawful by the court. If Equinor then seeks approval for the field again, the decision will need to be remade. The decision to approve Rosebank or not would then fall to this government.

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Rosebank is a disaster for the climate and a bad deal for Britain 

Experts have repeatedly warned that new oil and gas drilling will push us past safe climate limits. Even in the short while since Rosebank was approved, we’ve seen the impacts of climate change escalate, whether that’s months of flooded fields impacting UK farmers, or lethal temperatures and wildfires around the world.

Bringing Rosebank online would push us further into unsafe territory. The emissions created just from extracting the oil from Rosebank would see the oil and gas industry blow past its emissions reductions target. 

But Rosebank is also a bad deal for Britain. It’s mostly oil for export and would do nothing to lower bills or boost our energy security. Yet, because of huge tax breaks for new oil and gas drilling, the UK public would effectively cover most of the costs of developing it.

Rosebank would also not provide long term security for oil and gas workers and their communities. Even with new fields being approved, jobs supported by the industry have more than halved in the past decade. Instead of acting in the narrow interests of fossil fuel firms, the government can now turn its attention to creating good, secure renewable energy jobs and supporting workers into these industries that have a long-term future.

This government is right not to waste time and money trying to defend the indefensible.

After decades of the oil and gas industry obscuring the harm it is causing and delaying the transition to clean energy – while the world heats up and jobs decline as North Sea reserves dry up – it is good to see the government beginning to act on the science, in line with the law, and in the public interest.

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