A group of over 100 leading climate scientists, legal experts, and environmental campaigners have sent a letter to the Government urging them to impose a strict "carbon storage obligation" if they decide to re-approve the Rosebank oil field and Jackdaw gas field.

The letter argues that under the ‘polluter pays’ principle, the projects' developers should be legally required to fully fund the capture and permanent storage of any emissions.

The fact that any extraction in UK waters will meet a higher environmental standard than many other fields is one of the key arguments as to why producing ‘homegrown’ fossil fuels is better than importing them. That and the tax revenue.

Both of the North Sea drilling projects were approved in 2023, however, the Court of Session in Edinburgh subsequently quashed these approvals, ruling they were unlawful because the government failed to consider the climate impact of burning the extracted oil and gas.

Following this, updated environmental assessments were published, and now Andy Burnham and Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh must now decide whether to approve the fields.

Clearly a commitment from the developers to meet the highest standards would mean that the extraction would have no net impact (the use of the fuels is a different matter, but, again, this would only be better if the UK’s consumption is cut, and that’s another debate). Conversely, holding the developers to the highest global standards might make the developments economically unviable, which one suspects might be the purpose of some of the signatories.

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