Legal challenge that could stop Rosebank oilfield explained

But last year, Greenpeace and Uplift, applied for a judicial review of the decision made under the Conservative government to grant consent to the project - and this was granted. 

As a result landmark court decision earlier this year, the new Labour UK Government has already conceded that the development of the oilfield would be unlawful because its Environmental Impact Assessment did not take into  account the emissions produced in the burning of its oil and gas - what are called its "scope 3" emissions.

This has left the developers, Norwegian oil and energy giant, Equinor, and UK-registered  Ithaca Energy, to fight the challenge in court next week.

What’s the backstory of Rosebank?

The field was first discovered in 2004 by Chevron, which backed out of the project a decade ago, declaring it "uneconomic" given the scale of the investment required. In September of 2023, the Conservative government approved the application by Norwegian energy giant, Equinor, to start developing the field.

Peak production will reportedly be up to 75,000 barrels per day of oil and by 2030 it is expected to produce almost 8% of U.K. oil production.

The burning of its oil and gas could, according to one calculation, result in the release of 200 million tonnes of CO2. Uplift has calculated this to be the same as the 28 lowest income countries in the world.

A long-running campaign, Stop Rosebank, has been fighting the development.

What is the UK Government position?

In August, the UK government announced that it would not challenge the judicial reviews brought against development consent for the Jackdaw and Rosebank offshore oil and gas fields in the North Sea.

“This decision,” it said, will save the taxpayer money.” It also said that this “did not mean the licenses for Jackdaw and Rosebank have been withdrawn.”

This announcement followed the ruling by the Supreme Court in the case of Finch v Surrey County Council, that Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) must assess the downstream effects on climate from combustion of the oil produced.

Previously regulators had not had to consider what are called the scope 3 emissions (those actually produced by the burning of oil and gas) in the Environmental impact Assessment for new projects.

The Labour Party had promised in its manifesto that it would issue no new oil and gas licenses to explore new fields.

Oilrig at sea (Image: PA)

What will Uplift and Greenpeace be arguing?

They have three different arguments. The first is based on the Supreme Court Finch decision, and argues that the previous government failed to consider scope 3 emissions caused by burning Rosebank’s oil and gas when assessing its environmental impact.

The second revolves around the North Sea Transition Authority’s role in approving the decision. Tessa Khan, a climate lawyer and founder of Uplift, described: “The decision to approve new oil and gas fields needs to be made by both the Secretary of State, but also the North Sea Transition Authority which is also the oil and gas regulator. When they make their decision to approve these projects, they don’t actually have to publish their reasoning for why they’ve approved a project, which in our view is complete untransparent and on that basis unlawful.”

The third argument is that the oil field involves putting a gas pipeline through a marine protected area, the Faroes-Shetland Sponge Belt Nature Conservation Marine Protected Area (NCMPA).

What are likely to be the key points of the debate?

That the development is unlawful has been accepted, so the case will revolve more around deciding what should be done. Cornerstone Barristers, who represent Greenpeace have explained: “Because the UK Government has accepted that the previous Secretary of State’s decisions to agree to the grant of consent for the projects are unlawful, the hearing is expected largely to focus on the question of what remedy should be granted by the court.”

Both Greenpeace and Uplift are arguing that the consent should be quashed.

Cornerstone Barristers said: “Whilst the court is considering the question of remedy, the court may be required to determine if the developers should be permitted to continue to develop the fields pending the resolution of the judicial reviews and, if necessary, the retaking of the decisions on consent.”

What has the Finch decision meant for this case and oil and gas more widely?

Tessa Khan said: “We’re in a completely different place now from where we were a year ago in that now the UK Government is actively consulting now on the new guidance that oil and gas developers will have to abide by when they are doing their Environmental Impact Assessments for these projects.

"We are now in a position where the government is going to ask these developers to account for the full range of environmental impacts that their projects have, and that includes the climate impacts of burning the oil and gas in the reserves of these projects. That is completely unprecedented in the UK. It creates a whole new level of accountability and scrutiny for the environmental impact that these projects will have.”

What does UK Climate Change Committee say about Rosebank and other new oilfields?

In its 2023 Progress report to the UK Parliament, it said: “Expansion of fossil fuel production is not in line with Net Zero. As well as pushing forward strongly with new low-carbon industries, Net Zero also makes it necessary to move away from high-carbon developments.”

It also said that “the UK will continue to need some oil and gas until it reaches Net Zero, but this does not in itself justify the development of new North Sea fields”.

READ MORE: 

• Rosebank legal challenge by environmental groups to be heard by court
• Equinor hails jobs impact of huge oil field off Shetland

What does the academic research say?

A 2021 analysis by Daniel Welsby, James Price and Steve Pye at UCL, said 60% of known oil and gas must remain underground in 2050 to prevent global temperatures exceeding 1.5°C above the pre-industrial average.

How many jobs will Rosebank create?

It is expected to support around 2,000 jobs during the height of the construction phase It will support an average of approximately 525 UK-based jobs throughout the lifetime of the field.

What would be the cost to us of the climate impact of burning Rosefield’s oil and gas?

Economists have attempted to calculate the cost of each tonne of CO2 released to society. One study calculated between £133 and £241. Another, which included the impact of feedback loops, estimated around £4000, which would make the total cost of burning all of Rosebank’s oil and gas, £800 billion. What measures will the project have to reduce its emissions?

What about carbon capture?

Carbon capture is an important technology on the path to Net Zero, but it is also often used as an argument for the further exploitation of oil and gas..

However,  an Oxford University paper published last December said that heavy dependence on Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) to reach net zero targets around 2050 would be “highly economically damaging”, costing at least $30 trillion more than a route based primarily on renewable energy, energy efficiency and electrification.

The report also noted that CCS is not currently being developed on anything like the scale needed. The volume of CO2 being captured and stored around the world has approximately doubled in the last decade, and even following a low-CCS pathway would entail approximately a 13-fold scale-up by 2030.

What is the public mood around Rosebank?

Last October, a Savanta poll found 51% supported the decision to go ahead with the oil field. However, a poll published later in the year found 

But pressure is now mounting over Rosebank with a petition reaching over 150,000 signatures, and further support from 400 faith leaders, 200 organisations, 40 MEPs, 50 MPs from every major political party, and the King’s former environmental advisor, Jonathan Porritt.

The Stop Rosebank campaign plans to hold a rally in Edinburgh on the first day of the court case, November 12.

Tessa Khan said: “The Rosebank oilfield has been the single most controversial fossil fuel development in the UK in many years. It has attracted condemnation across the political spectrum across the UK and Scotland and from high profile celebrities to thousands of ordinary people who have written to MPS and signed petitions saying that they don’t think this is a project that is good for the climate, and that it doesn’t represent good value for the British public.

"It’s not good for our energy security. It’s not going to bring down the price of oil and gas in the UK and it stands in the way of proper planning for a transition, which is what we need from a job-ceentred prosperity perspective. I think it’s really clear that the public also wants the UK Government to focus instead on renewable energy. All of the polling shows that the UK public thinks that renewable energy is the route  to affordable secure energy in the UK."