A Scottish court sitting in Edinburgh yesterday dealt a serious blow to the oil and gas plans in the North Sea of Shell and Norway’s Equinor. Hopefully the authorities in Georgetown will take note of the expanding jurisprudence as it relates to responsibility for downstream carbon emissions from oil and gas extracted here.
According to Reuters, Britain’s approvals for two vast North Sea oil and gas fields were overturned by the Scottish court in what is being hailed as a significant win for environmental campaigners.
It is now left to the UK to determine whether the projects will go ahead and it will come under enormous pressure to say no.
Shell and Equinor fought to uphold approval for the projects in the face of challenges by Greenpeace and Uplift. According to Reuters, the environmental groups argued that the approvals unlawfully failed to take into account the emissions that would come from the oil and gas being used.
This climate burden has been completely ignored by the Guyana Government even though over 600,000 barrels of oil are being produced per day and projections are hurtling towards a million barrels a day. The government and President Ali, in particular, have used sequestered carbon in Guyana’s ancient forests to excuse the wanton extraction of oil and gas from this country’s waters.
The Court of Session in Edinburgh ruled that as Britain’s decisions to approve the projects were unlawful, the decisions must be revisited.
In a key declaration, Judge Andrew Stewart said in a written ruling. “The public interest in authorities acting lawfully and the private interest of members of the public in climate change outweigh the private interest of the developers”.
It is an argument that is gaining purchase globally. Here, the public interest in the authorities acting lawfully and the private interests of members of the public must indeed outweigh the private interests of ExxonMobil, Hess, CNOOC and dare we say elements of the government that appear hellbent on derogating the wider public interest.
Reuters said that the three companies will be able to continue work on the projects, but no oil or gas may be extracted until the government retakes the decisions.
In response to the ruling the UK government said it is consulting on new environmental guidance on how emissions must be accounted for and said the companies can re-apply for consent under the new rules.
Shell clearly recognized the potential jeopardy. A Shell spokesperson yesterday said “Swift action is needed from the government so that we and other North Sea operators can make decisions about vital UK energy infrastructure.”
Equinor said it was “pleased with the outcome which allows us to continue with progressing the Rosebank project while we await new consents”.
Reuters noted that the judicial reviews by Greenpeace and Uplift came after a landmark ruling by the United Kingdom’s Supreme Court which said planning authorities must consider the impact of burning, rather than just extracting, fossil fuels when approving projects.
This then prompted Britain to announce it would not defend Greenpeace and Uplift’s cases.
“While the proponents could still submit a new application, the implications of the project for the UK’s energy transition would then be subject to enhanced public scrutiny,” said Catherine Higham, Senior Policy Fellow at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change.
Reuters said that Greenpeace hailed the ruling as a “historic win”, with senior campaigner Philip Evans saying in a statement: “The age of governments approving new drilling sites by ignoring their climate impacts is over.”
Reuters said that North Sea fossil fuel production has declined sharply since its peak in the late 1990s and the UK Labour government has said it will not issue any new oil and gas licences as it strives to reduce the country’s fossil fuel use to help meet its climate targets.
“Our priority is to deliver a fair, orderly and prosperous transition in the North Sea in line with our climate and legal obligations, which drives towards our clean energy future of energy security, lower bills, and good, long-term jobs,” a spokesperson for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said.
According to Reuters, Shell, Equinor and Ithaca last year accepted that the approval of the Jackdaw and Rosebank fields were unlawful because downstream emissions were not considered, but asked the Court of Session to nonetheless not overturn their approval.
The government here must be pressed to consider the global impact of downstream emissions in its continued haste to approve more oil extraction projects for ExxonMobil.
This newspaper has argued on several occasions that the Government of Guyana should have already engineered an oil depletion policy based on two pillars: what is needed to reorient the economy into new revenue streams away from oil and to consider the devastating impact of the inexorable rise in carbon emissions and the global temperature. The government has been completely deaf to this argument as it continues its quest to be ExxonMobil’s cheerleader. Sanity in addressing emissions is even more important considering the mindboggling second Trump withdrawal of the US from the Paris climate agreement.
Just in passing, Guyana’s commitment to the Paris pact will come under close scrutiny next month when it is due to submit what its Nationally Determined Contributions will be as it relates to carbon emissions.
The government should also reflect carefully on the ludicrously low 5% in renewable energy presently being generated. That is a scandalous figure in a four-and-a-half year old government that is given to frequent flights of fantasy as to its environmental credentials.