The UK Supreme Court recently ruled that Surrey County Council acted unlawfully in granting planning permission to a developer to expand their oil-drilling operations at Horse Hill in the Surrey countryside without considering the negative climate impacts both now and in the future.

The enormity of this decision has the potential to completely alter the landscape for the oil and gas industry in the UK.

Local planning authorities (mainly county councils) in the UK are required by law contained in regulations updated in 2017 to conduct an environmental impact assessment before giving planning permission to major oil and gas projects. This process is designed to identify direct and indirect environmental impacts of a proposed project when making land-use planning decisions.

The Supreme Court has made it clear that the indirect effects of taking fossil fuels out of the ground, which include greenhouse gas emissions caused when they are eventually burnt as fuel, must be included in the environmental impact assessment before development consent may be given.

The developer hoping to extract oil from four new wells in the Surrey Hills, UK Oil and Gas plc, (which has a stake in Horse Hill Development Ltd) has significant interests in several oil projects in the UK. Its statement characterises the court’s decision as........

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