Introduction

Two recent decisions by the UK government have ignited a conflict between the country's energy security objectives and climate change obligations. The first decision is the government's announcement that it will approve more than one hundred licences for oil and gas extraction in the UK's section of the North Sea. Following this announcement, the government introduced the Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill to the British House of Commons on 8 November 2023 to increase the frequency of petroleum auction rounds in the country. The second decision concerns the government's overhaul of its Net Zero policy, postponing the coming into force of key green targets. These decisions have raised controversies and attracted criticism from various quarters, the core of which is that they are inconsistent with the UK's domestic and international climate commitments. In the case of the licensing decision, not even the government's intention to invest in two major carbon capture and storage projects in the UK, unveiled about the same time as the licensing decision, appeared to temper criticisms.

Both decisions are coming in the wake of high temperatures and extreme weather events in many parts of the world. They coincide with an ongoing cost of living and energy crises that have negatively impacted British households, taking the form of an astronomic rise in the prices of energy services like electricity, heating, cooling, and household commodities. Also, the decisions were made some weeks before the twenty-eighth Conference of the Parties (COP28) in Dubai, the UAE, where the phase-out of fossil fuel usage was the principal subject of negotiations amidst other discussions to craft appropriate and effective responses to climate change.

In the light of the above developments, this article has two aims. First, it illuminates the reasons underpinning the decisions under consideration. Doing this is a first step towards appreciating the impact of both decisions. Second, it discusses the implications of the decisions, considering the tension between the UK's energy security objectives and climate change obligations and drawing insights from domestic and international law on the one hand and global politics on the other. Ultimately, the article will demonstrate that the decisions carry weighty legal and international political implications beyond the territorial borders of the UK. By fully setting out these implications, the article could assist policymakers in conducting a future reassessment of the decisions.

Footnotes omitted from this introduction.