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The decision by the UK government to issue a bucketload of new oil and gas exploration licenses since late last year has riled up environmentalists in the country with some turning to the courts to challenge them. Leading up to the 2024 election, the previous majority government in the UK approved 82 oil and gas drilling licences in the North Sea between October 2023 and May 2024. According to UK law, a legal challenge against the drilling licenses can only be made within three months of the decision to grant the license. As a result, marine conservation organisation Oceana UK lodged a legal challenge with the High Court today against decisions made under the previous government to grant drilling licences to 31 North Sea oil and gas projects in May 2024. In its legal challenge, Oceana claims that the approval of new drilling licences in the North Sea by the former government did not consider the risk of potential oil spills to the UK’s marine protected areas nor did it consider the full impacts of these drilling projects on the climate, including the estimated emissions generated by extracted oil and gas. The organisation also sent an open letter to Energy Security and Net Zero Secretary Ed Miliband today, co-signed by more than 20 NGOs including Friends of the Earth Scotland, Greenpeace UK, and the Wildlife and Countryside Link, in an attempt to encourage the government to both concede the legal action brought by the organisation and rescind some of the drilling licences awarded by the previous government. Oceana is represented by environmental law firm Leigh Day. It also argues that former Energy Security and Net Zero Secretary Claire Coutinho “failed to adequately assess the cumulative impacts of licensed drilling activity on the relevant sites”, and that she relied on a “flawed assumption” that only 50% of licenced drilling would end up taking place. The new government has pledged to end all new North Sea oil and gas licencing while at the same time working to rapidly increase domestic renewables. However, it also stated that it would not rescind any existing drilling licenses handed out by other governments. Oceana claimed in the letter that, by conceding the case, the government would “make good on promises made to the public and signal a clear departure from the previous administration’s continuing reliance on fossil fuels”. |
