Is oil fields judgement a fresh political headache for UK Government?

The approvals of two controversial multi-billion-pound oil and gas fields have been quashed.

The Court of Session ruling that approvals to drill two new oil fields off the coast of Scotland are unlawful has been hailed as a victory for the climate by environmental campaigners.

In reality, it may just create a fresh political headache for the UK Government.

If they actually want to get the oil and gas, the companies that want to exploit the Rosebank and Jackdaw fields have to go back to the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero for permission – this time, setting out how much carbon will be released, not just from getting the fossil fuels out of the ground, but also when they’re burned.

It will fall to Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, to decide whether a permission that was previously granted when some of that carbon cost was left out, can still be issued under the UK’s carbon budget when the full emissions are known.

Approve it, and there will be an outcry from those who say our leaders are already doing far too little as the planet slides deeper into a climate crisis.

Reject it, and it sends a powerful signal to the oil and gas industry that the final chapter for fossil fuels in the North Sea has already begun – with all that means for jobs and the economy in Scotland.

PM Sir Keir Starmer and energy secretary Ed Miliband.Getty Images

The Labour government has already made a big call by saying no new oil and gas drilling licenses will be approved. Rejecting a project that is already well advanced, just as global energy security becomes more uncertain with the election of Donald Trump as US President, opens the UK Government up to even greater political risk.

Construction of the platforms that could eventually pump oil and gas out of Rosebank and Jackdaw continues in Norway. That signals how the companies believe this story will eventually end.

The costs of this decision could still end up being paid by the government, not the oil companies – and of course, the climate.

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