For the first time, UK ministers have had to weigh the emissions from burning gas extracted from a North Sea field before approving its development. The way they did so for Jackdaw says a good deal about how the far larger Rosebank oil field is likely to fare.

Coverage of the decision to approve the Jackdaw gas field has focused on energy security and household bills. But the decision also marks an important test of the legal rules governing new fossil fuel projects. Jackdaw, about 150 miles, or 250km, east of Aberdeen, could send gas ashore from as early as the end of October. Yet the project was first approved in 2022, only for a court to strike that approval down. What happened in between explains why the much larger Rosebank oil field will find the same test far harder.

How a government elected on a promise of no new oil and gas licences can approve new drilling turns on a distinction that rarely makes the headlines. A licence gives a company exclusive rights over an area of seabed, but it does not, on its own, allow anything to be built or any oil or gas to be produced. The regulator must also consent to the project, with the energy secretary’s agreement following an environmental impact assessment. Jackdaw had its licence, but lacked a consent that could survive in court.

The case that changed the rules

That process was transformed by a dispute over a modest oil site at Horse Hill in........

© The Conversation