He High Court of London accepted on Tuesday a request from Greenpeace to initiate a judicial review of the new round of licenses to extract oil and gas launched last year by the British government, the environmental group said.
Greenpeace argues that the impact associated with granting one hundred new permits to drill in the North Sea must be assessed against the emissions that the hydrocarbons will cause when they are used, not only the pollution that their extraction will create.
The environmentalists ensure that 80% of the emissions that will be derived from the new licenses will be a consequence of the burning of fuel obtained.
“This verdict It is the first major setback for the government’s reckless round of oil and gas concessions,” he said in a statement. Philip EvansGreenpeace activist.
“The ministers they will now be forced to justify before a judge why they want to unleash a new drilling fever in the North Sea, against the advice of leading scientists and the head of the UN, without assessing the impact on the climate,” he added.
The UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterresaffirmed in March, when presenting the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), that “a plan for abandonment global of oil and gas production compatible with the goals of achieving net zero emissions by 2050.”
Former British Prime Minister Liz Truss ordered in September last year, during her short period of 45 days as head of government, to initiate a process to exploit nearly 900 new areas in the North Sea, in order to reduce the energy dependency of the UK relative to other countries.