WHO needs Keir Starmer to compromise our national energy security and push up our bills when we have the Supreme Court to do it for us?County Council was wrong to grant planning permission for oil extraction from a number of small wells near Gatwick Airport without considering the carbon emissions which would be released when the oil went on to be burned.
Moreover, the Supreme Court decision brings into doubt all oil and gas projects in Britain – as well as other infrastructure projects.Presumably, new roads, railways, factories, housing developments will all now be open to challenge in the courts – and face a good chance of being blocked, because they will inevitably produce carbon emissions.
Former Supreme Court judge Lord Sumption warned about this when he used the BBC’s Reith lectures in 2019 to argue that “the growing empire of the law” is straying into politics, beyond its remit.It was they who, also in 2019, nodded through an amendment to the Climate Change Act which places a legally-binding target for Britain to achieve