How a Supreme Court ruling is forcing politicians to get real about the main cause of climate change

The legal principle the case establishes is that companies need to take into account the impact of the use of their products. To date, the industry has resolutely refused to do this – it is someone else’s problem. In Scotland, they have promised to reduce the carbon intensity of oil and gas extraction, while ignoring the other 90 per cent of their contribution to climate change. This is like a landmine factory saying they will improve health and safety conditions for workers, but completely ignoring what their products actually do.

Of course the International Energy Agency and others have already concluded that burning the oil and gas already consented is enough to take the world past the 1.5C threshold for dangerous climate change. The court’s judgment could influence the result of current UK legal challenges to the Rosebank oil field and the Jackdaw gas field. Both these cases were paused to await the Horse Hill ruling.

Every last drop

So what does this mean for the pledges that the parties are making this election? Everyone wants an organised transition to low-carbon jobs but how and when vary considerably. The Scottish Greens, of course, are promising to put an end to new oil and gas licensing and to revoke recently issued licences. At the other extreme, the Tories want to get out every last drop of oil and gas from the North Sea.

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Labour says that it will not grant any new licenses. Sounds good, but so many licenses have already been issued that extracting all that oil and gas will put us well beyond any version of a fair emissions limit. Which Labour acknowledge by saying oil and gas will be flowing for decades to come. They will also be increasing the windfall tax on oil and gas profits.

New licences harder to justify

The SNP has dropped Nicola Sturgeon’s policy of a presumption against new developments but maintained its position that any new licenses should be assessed against a climate-compatibility assessment. Sort of sounds reasonable, but of course the UK Government already has a climate-compatibility checklist which appears to work like this – question: “is it OK to give the go-ahead to this carbon-budget-busting proposal?”; answer: “yeah, on you go then.”

Why Scotland is one of the most sensitive places in the world to climate change

The Lib Dems plan a windfall tax on the oil industry and to end subsidies for oil and gas, but are silent on current and new licences. On the face of it, the Supreme Court’s new judgment should make it much harder to justify any new oil and gas licences, which is a problem for the Tories and perhaps the Lib Dems. But, properly implemented, it should mean a review of existing licences, which is much more challenging for Labour and the SNP.

Dr Richard Dixon is an environmental campaigner and consultant