One year ago today we won a landmark climate victory in the Supreme Court.
The case, which campaigner Sarah Finch brought on behalf of the Weald Action Group, concerned planning permission that Surrey County Council had granted for a small oil site at Horse Hill in Surrey.
After a five-year fight through the court system, the Supreme Court ruled that the Council had acted unlawfully in granting permission for long-term oil production at Horse Hill without assessing the impacts on the climate of the greenhouse gas emissions from burning the oil.
The judgment was hailed as a ‘watershed’ and ‘tide-turning’. The day after it was handed down, Sarah wrote in the Guardian, “I believe that the supreme court’s ruling is a tipping point in the right direction… The days of fossil-fuel applications being waved through without full consideration of their climate impacts are over.”
One year on, has she been proved right?
Coal mine, Rosebank, and onshore sites ruled unlawful
At Horse Hill, the climate impacts of burning fossil fuels were left out of the decision-making process. This wasn’t a one-off, in fact it was routine. So if the Horse Hill permission was unlawful, others were too. Following our win, the dominos started to fall.
The first big victim was the planned new coal mine in Whitehaven, Cumbria. Granted permission by Michael Gove in 2022, it would have been the first new deep coal mine in decades. The mining company had actually intervened in our case to argue along with the Council and Horse Hill promoters UK Oil & Gas Ltd that the council was right and we were wrong. Unsuccessfully. The consent was quashed in September 2024. The company has said it won’t reapply.
Next up were Rosebank and Jackdaw, two oil and gas fields in the North Sea, approved by the Sunak government in 2023 and 2022 respectively. In January 2025, the Scottish Court of Session ruled they too had been permitted unlawfully. Those developers – Equinor in Rosebank’s case and Shell in Jackdaw’s – are going to try again.
Other stopped or postponed projects include the multi-million pound expansion of the Cloghan Point oil terminal on the shores of Belfast Lough, an onshore oil site at Biscathorpe in Lincolnshire, and planned expansion of the Saltfleetby gas field in Lincolnshre and Wressle oil and gas site in Yorkshire.
Over and above individual sites, the ruling also forced the government to rethink its approach to the environmental impact assessment of new oil and gas projects. New guidance was published this week which provides a genuinely robust, credible approach to assessing the emissions caused by burning oil and gas.
Beyond oil and gas
The influence of the ‘Finch’ ruling has reached beyond oil and gas.
For example the Public Inquiry into plans for a new runway at Gatwick Airport asked for submissions on the relevance of the ruling to Gatwick. They then recommended that the runway be refused – for a number of reasons, including its effect on the government’s ability to meet its legal carbon targets. If the government ignores this and approves the new runway, they will be open to legal challenge.
Turning the tide on factory farming
In April an intensive livestock facility in Methwold in Norfolk was refused planning permission to expand on environment and climate grounds. The Planners referenced the Supreme Court ruling on our case.
And just this week, a High Court judge overturned planning permission for an intensive poultry unit in the River Severn catchment following a legal challenge brought by local campaigner Dr Alison Caffyn, supported by River Action. The Supreme Court’s ruling on the Horse Hill case was applied to animal agriculture, with the judge ruling that the applicants had failed to consider the ‘indirect effects’ of the developments: the deforestation involved in growing the soy the animals would be fed on, and the manure and other pollution that the ‘farms’ would give rise to.
We are extremely proud that our campaign has had such broad effects.
International reach
The ruling’s influence is being seen internationally. For example the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) Court recently ruled in a case brought by two groups, Greenpeace Nordic and Nature & Youth Norway, against the State of Norway. It concerned grant of permission by the Norwegian government for three oil and gas projects in the North Sea. The two groups challenged the validity of the three decisions as there had been no assessment of the impact on the climate from greenhouse gas emissions arising from the future combustion of the hydrocarbons extracted.
While the EFTA Court’s judgment did not expressly reference the ‘Finch’ judgment, it mirrored it, with very similar language making similar points. As a multinational court, the EFTA Court’s advisory opinion will be likely to have wide reach.
Climate urgency
While we’ve been watching the impacts of our win play out, the effects of climate change have escalated. Temperatures have continued to rise, faster than predicted. 2024 was the hottest year since records began, and the first year to pass 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels.
The rising temperatures led to extreme weather, wildfires, droughts and floods across the world. Last month the Swiss village of Blatten was smashed to rubble when a glacier collapsed. Here in the UK, we’ve experienced destructive storms and flooding, as well as record wildfires. A record wet winter followed by a record dry spring played havoc with UK food production and farmers’ livelihoods. Reservoir levels across England are at historic lows.
All this underlines how urgent it is that we stop producing and burning fossil fuels – the root cause of human-made global warming.
There must be no new oil or gas
Our win goes a long way to help the government take the most important action there is – and refuse permission for new oil and gas. It will soon face the test of remaking the decisions on Rosebank and Jackdaw. Now that its revised guidance is published, Equinor and Shell will submit new, Finch-compliant Environmental Statements. These will outline the full extent of the climate threat the developments pose. In the case of Rosebank alone, it’s estimated that more than 200 million tonnes of CO2 will inevitably result from burning its oil reserves.
Once these are on the government’s desk, our eyes and those of all those concerned about the climate will be on them. It will be a key test of their commitment to climate action.
In opposition, the Labour Party said it would not have supported Rosebank. It has a manifesto commitment not to issue any new licences for oil and gas fields. However since it took office, it has suggested it would support the development of already-licensed fields. Of which Rosebank and Jackdaw are two examples.
Opening any new North Sea oil and gas fields is incompatible with achieving the Paris Agreement goal of limiting warming to 1.5°C. This was the key finding from a recent report by academics at UCL: The Climate Implications of New Oil and Gas Fields in the UK: An overview of the evidence.
The UK is currently Europe’s second largest oil and gas producer. By saying no to Rosebank, Jackdaw and other new fossil fuel sites, we can reclaim our position as a global climate leader. Then we could all move on to the next challenge: rapidly decarbonising our economies and making sure it is done fairly. The energy transition brings huge opportunities for investment and jobs and these must be directed where they are needed most.
A huge impact
We are immensely proud that our fight against oil and gas in the Weald has had such important impacts. A huge THANK YOU to everyone who supported our campaign. There are too many of you to name.
And thank you to the lawyers who represented us so well: Marc Willers KC of Garden Court Chambers, Estelle Dehon KC and Ruchi Parekh of Cornerstone Barristers, and solicitors Rowan Smith, Julia Eriksen and Carol Day at Leigh Day LLP.
Reflecting on the ruling a year on, Marc Willers KC said, “The judgment in Finch was a resounding success for our clients and everyone concerned about the impacts of dangerous climate change. As Lord Leggatt said: ‘You can only care about what you know about!’”
Estelle Dehon KC, said: “This case emphasised two important things. First, a common sense approach, in light of the climate science, is needed where climate impacts are being considered. And second, it is crucial for the public, and then the decision-maker, to be provided with clear, full information on the impact of proposed development on the climate, judged against emissions-reduction pathways, even where it is likely that impact will always be significantly harmful. Only then can decision-makers properly factor the harm into the final outcome, forming an overall view of the advantages and disadvantages of going ahead.”
Notes
The court costs and the legal fees of the High Court and Court of Appeal stages of our legal challenge were raised by crowdfunding, fundraising events, and numerous donations large and small. The costs of the Supreme Court stage were met by Law for Change.
Read the full judgment here: https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/uksc-2022-0064