Net zero zealots will probably find a way to stop Rosebank

So, Rosebank is to go ahead, or so we think. The North Sea Transition Authority has granted a licence for the extraction of oil and gas from the field, which lies to the west of the Shetlands. For its part, Labour has said that while it opposes the project, it will not withdraw the licences should it win power next year.

Despite the best efforts of Mark Carney and others, someone evidently thinks it is worth investing £3.1 billion in new oil and gas production. That is the sum that the developers, Equinor and Ithaca Energy, say they will invest in the first phase of the scheme. Eventually, more than £8 billion is expected to be invested.

But this isn’t, one suspects, the last word on the subject. Over the next few months, we will find out whether it is still possible to issue licences for new oil and gas extraction when you have legally committed yourself to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050. Environmental groups have already said today that they intend to challenge the decision, and the government certainly cannot count on winning. After all, the government has already lost a High Court case in July 2022, in which it was ruled that the government’s current net zero strategy was not sufficient to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. In addition, the government lost a case in the Court of Appeal, which ruled its Airports National Policy Statement (which approved the third runway at Heathrow) did not conform to the government’s commitments under the Paris Agreement. The Supreme Court overturned the Court of Appeal’s decision in 2020 on the grounds that the Paris Agreement itself did not put the government under legal obligations and that the Airports National Policy Statement predated the insertion of the net zero target into the Climate Change Act.

In short, climate protesters will not be limited to protesting about the Rosebank decision – they have a powerful basis for challenging it in the courts. The government will then have to explain how developing a new oil and gas field is consistent with the net zero target – something it might struggle to do, even though Rishi Sunak has committed himself to investing £20 billion of public money in carbon capture and storage technology.

The question then will be: can Britain really live with a legally binding commitment to reach net zero by 2050? The closer we approach 2050, the bigger a burden the net zero target will become. Every infrastructure project, every energy project will increasingly come under legal challenge. The problem could be overcome by amending the Climate Change Act so that the 2050 target becomes an ambition rather than a legal requirement. But it may be some time before we have a government that is brave enough to reopen the matter.