UK Supreme Court Rules Oil Combustion Emissions Must Be Assessed in Finch Case

According to the Court's press summary, the developer applied in December 2018 for permission to retain and expand an existing well site, extracting oil from six wells over 20 years. The project fell within a category requiring an environmental impact assessment under the Town and Country Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations 2017. The assessment covered emissions from the site itself but not those from the eventual use of the oil as fuel, and the council accepted that approach.

What the Court decided

The claimant, a local resident, sought judicial review. The High Court rejected the claim, and the Court of Appeal, by a majority, upheld that decision. The Supreme Court allowed the appeal. The majority reasoned that it was an agreed fact that, if the project goes ahead, it is inevitable that the oil will be refined and eventually burnt, producing greenhouse gas emissions, and that a reasonable estimate of those emissions can readily be made. Refining did not break the causal connection between extraction and combustion. The Court also rejected the argument that national policy encouraging domestic oil and gas production narrowed the scope of the assessment, while accepting that such policy is relevant to the decision whether to grant permission.

The two dissenting Justices considered that downstream emissions are addressed by central government through national policy, and that it would be constitutionally inappropriate for a local planning authority to take on that role.

Who is affected

The judgment is directly relevant to developers of fossil fuel extraction projects in the UK and to the planning authorities that consider them. Environmental statements for such projects will need to estimate and assess the emissions from combustion of the product, and decision-makers will need to take that assessment into account.

What happens next

The decision clarifies the law on the scope of environmental impact assessment, but it does not determine whether any particular project should be approved: that remains a planning judgement weighing all relevant considerations, including national policy. Developers and their advisers should review pending applications and environmental statements, and lenders and investors in extraction projects will want to understand how consent risk has changed.

Sources

• The National Archives: Press summary, R (Finch) v Surrey County Council [2024] UKSC 20
• UK Supreme Court: R (on the application of Finch on behalf of the Weald Action Group) v Surrey County Council and others