There has been a dramatic change in how oil drilling rights are approved on one side of the invisible line that divides the North Sea between the UK and Norway.
On the Norwegian side, after a groundbreaking decision by the Oslo district court on 18 January, the government must now take into account the emissions that come from the burning of oil and gas reserves in addition to the impact of getting the reserves out of the ground, before they approve a new field. The legal win, which applies for the first time the reasoning of a separate case in the Norwegian Supreme Court, was a result of Greenpeace Norway and Young Friends of the Earth Norway challenging the approval of three new oil and gas fields by the government. They argued the government had not been properly vetted for climate harm. The court agreed.
