A group whose legal challenge against the Rosebank oil and gas field will be heard by the courts has urged the UK government not to approve any re-submitted plan if they are victorious.

Uplift and Greenpeace UK both applied to the Court of Session in Edinburgh for judicial reviews of the decisions made by the energy secretary under the Conservative government and by the oil and gas regulator, the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA), to grant consent to the project last year. 

Both the UK government and the NSTA have accepted that, in light of a Supreme Court ruling that the climate impact of burning coal, oil and gas must be taken into account when decisions are made to approve fossil fuel projects, at least one part of the process was unlawful.

Uplift’s application argues that the UK government failed to take into account the “scope three” downstream emissions from burning Rosebank’s oil and gas and their contribution to climate change.

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Campaigners say Rosebank will emit more CO² than the world’s 28 lowest-income countries combined do in a year.

If the court rules in favour of the applicants Equinor, the owner of the field, would likely have to submit a new application for consideration by the UK government - something campaigners are urging the new Labour government to reject in that event.

Tessa Khan, climate lawyer and executive director of Uplift, one of the groups which brought the challenge told The Herald: "Our legal challenge has five separate grounds and one of those is that in approving Rosebank the UK government failed to take into account the emissions from burning Rosebank’s oil and gas in the environmental impact assessment.

“Since the Supreme Court decided this year that all new oil and gas projects do need to take into account those scope three emissions, the government and the NSTA have both conceded that the decision to approve was unlawful in light of the failure to ask for those scope three emissions from the developers.

"The government has conceded on one of the five separate grounds, and Equinor and Ithaca Energy are both contesting all five grounds.

“If the government has said that its own decision was unlawful you’d think that’s pretty persuasive, but Equinor are arguing against that.

"What we’re asking the court to do is that if it finds that the decision was unlawful on any of those grounds it should do what’s known in Scottish courts as reduce the order, which is basically to nullify the decision.

“If Equinor and Ithica Energy want to move ahead with the project they’d have to submit a new application for consent and the government would have to approve it.

(Image: Archive) “Given that Labour were on the record when they were in opposition saying that they didn’t think Rosebank should go ahead, we hope a Labour government will reject any new application.”

As well as the environmental concerns surrounding the project, opponents have pointed to the government's own figures which say around 80% of oil produced in the UK is exported.

Equinor argues that energy from Rosebank will "ultimately end up in the UK grid".

Ms Khan said: "It’s not going to have any impact on the UK’s energy security or on our energy bills.

"New oil and gas production won’t bring down people’s energy bills because ultimately the price we pay for it is determined by global and regional markets.

“So it’s not doing anything to help us, the British public, but it is going to involve giving a multi-billion pound tax break to Equinor, which is a Norwegian government company. They’ve got a trillion dollar wealth fund they’ve built off the back of their oil and gas exploitation, so I really don’t see any public interest in the decision to approve.”

Uplift also argues that, given oil is finite and declining, any jobs boost for the North Sea can only be transient.

Campaigners calling for a 'just transition' can point to the devastation of mining communities - between 1980 and 1994 more than 200,000 miners lost their jobs according to the IFS - during the move away from coal as a stark warning from the past.

(Image: Newsquest)

Ms Khan said: "The government really has a choice to make about whether or not it wants to support a transition into the tens of thousands of jobs it could create via renewable energy development in the North Sea, or whether it wants to continue to prop up an industry that’s in decline where the jobs aren’t long-term or sustainable.

“If you’re worried about jobs the clear prospect for long-term sustainable jobs is in renewables, not oil and gas.

"Despite the fact that the government has issued hundreds of new licences over the last decade, jobs supported by the oil and gas sector have halved because the basin is in decline, the oil and gas reserves are declining anyway.

“It’s a huge scandal that the government hasn’t developed a plan for that transition already and it’s hit places like Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire the hardest.

“Fuel poverty rates, food bank usage – all of these social and economic indicators in Aberdeen are the wrong way.

“We absolutely have to get a grip of it, and that’s the UK and the Scottish Government, in really planning a transition for that workforce and those communities.

"The first thing they need to do is come up with a real plan for the sector, which doesn’t exist at the moment.

“The only plan that exists is the North Sea Transition Deal which was developed by the industry and the UK Government. That’s a voluntary agreement and it has basically nothing to say about the transition in terms of jobs and support for communities.

“We need a properly funded, binding plan that is sector-specific.

“There are some very obvious steps the government could take like ensuring that people who want to move from oil and gas into offshore renewables don’t have to re-train or pay for their skills training themselves.

“Workers and unions have been calling for an offshore training passport, which is something concrete they could do.

“We’ve heard from the UK Government that GB Energy, the National Wealth Fund, the British Jobs Bonus, are going to be policies which help with the transition but we need to see concrete detail, and the Scottish Government and trade unions have got to be at the table rather than leaving it to the oil and gas industry.

"It has made historic profits in the last couple of years yet we’ve still had workers striking on oil and gas platforms because the conditions and terms they’re getting aren’t good enough.

“Those profits aren’t being used voluntarily by the industry to support the workforce so we’ve got to take the transition out of the industry’s hands and it put in the hands of governments, trade unions, and communities.”

A spokesperson for Equinor said: "Equinor – in principle – does not comment on ongoing litigation. Equinor welcomed regulatory approvals for the Rosebank development in 2023 and will continue to work closely with all relevant parties to progress the project.

"It is vital for the UK and will bring benefits in terms of local investment, jobs and energy security."