Drilling at Rosebank oil field, situated 80 miles north-west of Shetland in Scotland, was initially approved by the former government at the end of September 2023. Today, the new government announced that it would not defend the decision to approve Rosebank in court later this year.

“This is a massive win for everyone fighting to stop Rosebank and for a liveable climate,” read a press release by Oceana UK. 

The government has also decided not to defend Greenpeace’s case against the Jackdaw gas field.

Environmental groups across the UK and beyond welcomed the government’s decision. Greenpeace UK climate team leader Mel Evans said: “Following the Supreme Court ruling earlier this year, conceding these cases is the logical course of action. The two new fields combined would generate a vast amount of emissions while doing nothing to lower energy bills. The only real winners from giving them the green light would be multi-billion-pound oil giants.”

The Rosebank oil field, operated by the Norwegian oil giant Equinor, would produce over 300 million oil and gas barrels in its lifetime. According to analysis by Carbon Brief, burning this amount of fossil fuels would release around the same annual emissions of 90 countries and 400 million people.

Thereby, by choosing not to defend the Rosebank case, the new UK government agrees the previous government’s decision to approve Rosebank was unlawful.

Hugo Tagholm, executive director of Oceana UK, said: It’s brilliant to see the government recognise that approving oil fields without fully assessing their environmental impact is unlawful. Huge congratulations are in order for Uplift and Greenpeace and every campaigner who has spoken out against these fields. Oil and gas developments like Rosebank and Jackdaw harm our climate, ocean and planet. It’s simple: they have no place in our cleaner, greener and more prosperous future.:

“Will government now also concede Oceana’s legal challenge of new oil and gas licences, granted without adequate assessment of the impact on marine protected areas? Today’s news gives us hope,” adds Tagholm.

The other parties in the case – the oil & gas regulator, the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA), and Rosebank’s majority owner, Norwegian oil giant Equinor –  have yet to clarify whether they will defend the case. If they choose to defend, the case will still move through the Scottish courts but with a much stronger likelihood of the decision being ruled unlawful without the government’s defence.