Supreme Court of United Kingdom: While determining the lawfulness of Surrey County Council’s decision of not requiring an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for a project of crude oil extraction for commercial purposes; the Bench of Lord Kitchin, Lord Sales, Lord Leggatt, Lady Rose and Lord Richards, by a ratio of 3:2 held that Surrey County Council’s decision was unlawful because the emissions that will occur when the oil produced is burnt as fuel, was well within the scope of the EIA required by law in UK and EU Directive on EIA.
Lord Leggatt, Lord Kitchin and Lady Rose gave the majority judgment whereas Lord Sales and Lord Richards dissented.
Background: Town and Country Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations 2017 (2017 Regulations), requires an environmental impact assessment (“EIA”) to be carried out before planning permission can be granted for a development project which is likely to have significant effects on the environment. The 2017 Regulations implemented the EIA Directive 2011/92 EU of the European Parliament in the UK. The laws require an EIA to identify, describe and assess the likely “direct and indirect significant effects” of the project on the environment, including the impact on climate. The process of assessment must include public consultation. The legislation does not prevent the planning authority from giving consent for a project that is likely to cause significant harm to the environment; but it requires the authority to reach a reasoned conclusion on the environmental impact and to take this conclusion into account in making its decision.
In the instant case, a developer applied to Surrey County Council for planning permission to expand oil production from a well site at Horse Hill near Horley in Surrey. The proposed project would involve the extraction of oil from six wells over a period of 20 years.
The developer stated that the scope of the EIA should be confined to the direct release of greenhouse gases from within the well site boundary during the lifetime of the project; and that the EIA need not include an assessment of the greenhouse gas emissions that would occur when the oil extracted from the wells was ultimately burnt elsewhere as fuel.
The Surrey County Council accepted the argument and granted planning permission for the project, without assessing or considering the emissions that will occur upon combustion of the oil produced.
The appellant, a local resident, sought judicial review of the impugned decision. The High Court rejected her claim, holding that the combustion emissions were not within the legal scope of the EU EIA Directive and 2017 Regulations; alternatively, whether to assess them was a matter of evaluative judgment for the council, which had given legally valid reasons for deciding not to do so. The Court of Appeal upheld the High Court’s decision.
Issue: The issue in the instant case was whether the combustion emissions constitute “direct or indirect (…) effects of the project” within the meaning of the EU EIA Directive and 2017 Regulations. If they are, then whether they must be assessed as part of the EIA.
Court’s Assessment (Majority Opinion): Lord Leggatt* delivered the majority opinion for himself and on behalf of Lord Kitchin and Lady Rose.
The Court pointed out that if the oil extraction project goes ahead, it is likely but inevitable that the oil produced from the well site will be refined and, as an end product, will eventually undergo combustion, and that combustion will produce greenhouse gas emissions.
The majority further pointed out that the emissions that will occur on combustion of the oil produced are “effects of the project” because it is known with certainty that, if the project goes ahead, all the oil extracted from the ground will inevitably be burnt, thereby releasing greenhouse gases into the earth’s atmosphere in a quantity which can be readily estimated.
Referring to the European Union’s EIA Directive, the Court noted that the Directive does not impose any geographical limit on the scope of the environmental effects of a project that must be assessed. The Surrey County Council was therefore wrong to confine the EIA in the instant case to emissions expected to occur at the project site. It is in the very nature of “indirect” effects that they may occur away from their source. The Court pointed out that the impact of greenhouse gas emissions on climate does not depend on where the release occurs.
Rejecting the High Court’s observation that emissions occurring on combustion cannot be regarded as effects of the project because what is burnt as fuel will not be the crude oil produced from the well site but an end product made at a separate refinery, the majority pointed out that the process of refining crude oil does not alter its basic nature or intended use and cannot reasonably be regarded as breaking the causal connection between the extraction of the oil and its subsequent combustion. “Oil is a very different commodity. There is no element of conjecture about what will ultimately happen to the oil; refining the oil does not change it into a different type of object (unlike the incorporation of a part in a motor vehicle or aircraft); and a reasonable estimate can readily be made of the emissions that will occur upon its inevitable combustion”.
The majority further noted that the UK’s national policy of encouraging domestic production of oil and gas is relevant to the decision of the planning authority vis-a-vis whether to grant permission for the project or not. However, it does not dispense with the requirement to assess the environmental impact of the project or justify limiting the scope of that assessment before the planning decision is taken. The purpose of the EIA is to ensure that, whatever the decision taken, it is taken with full knowledge and public awareness of the likely significant environmental consequences.
Therefore, the majority concluded that Surrey County Council’s failure to conduct an EIA, regarding the effect on climate of the combustion of the oil that would be produced from the proposed well site, was unlawful.
Dissenting Opinion: Writing the dissenting opinion for himself and on behalf of Lord Richards, Lord Sales** stated that EU EIA Directive contemplates that decisions on the grant of planning consent will often be taken by local or regional authorities, rather than national authorities. The procedures and rules laid down in the Directive are intended to be appropriate for decision-making at local or regional level by such authorities.
It was further stated that downstream greenhouse gas emissions are addressed by central governments at the level of national policy. “Decisions regarding the distribution of greenhouse gas emissions between different sectors of the economy, the striking of a balance between promotion of national economic objectives and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in various sectors and the rate of transition sector by sector towards the achievement of the 2050 net zero target are all matters of national policy to be determined by central Government”. Lord Sales said that a local planning authority such as the Surrey Council is simply not in a position to address “big picture” issues in any sensible way.
Lord Sales further pointed out that it would be constitutionally inappropriate for a local planning authority to assume practical decision-making authority regarding downstream emissions and how these should be addressed in a manner, which would potentially be in conflict with Central Government’s decision-making and its ability to set national policy.
Lord Sales further pointed out that the general scheme of the EU EIA Directive indicated that the entirety of downstream greenhouse gas emissions does not qualify as “indirect effects of a project” within the meaning of the Directive. “Oil extracted from the Site will have to be refined before it is used. Construction of a refinery would constitute a project listed within Annex I to the EIA Directive for which an EIA would be required. Greenhouse gas emissions from the construction and operation of such a refinery would have to be assessed in the context of an EIA for that project. It would be disproportionate for them to have to be assessed twice, once in the context of an EIA for that project and also in the context of an EIA for the Site”.
“Very few legal rules to do with causation of effects operate according to a pure “but for” principle, and there is no reason to interpret the EIA Directive in this way”. Interpreting the Directive, Lord Sales pointed out that the formula used in the EU EIA Directive indicates that, even in relation to “indirect” environmental effects, they still have to be effects “of the project”. This means the effects must be relatively closely connected with the project and do not qualify if they are remote.
The dissenting Judges thus pointed out that EU EIA Directive leaves matter of general policy in relation to the extraction of oil and climate change open for determination at a national level, and the Surry Council was right to take national policy on this point into account in the way it did.
[R v. Surrey County Council, [2024] UKSC 20, decided on 20-06-2024]
*Majority Judgment authored by Lord Leggatt
**Dissenting opinion authored by Lord Sales
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