A conservation group is challenging the UK government in a London court over dozens of North Sea oil and gas exploration licenses that it says could put marine protected areas and climate stability at risk.

Oceana UK said licenses granted by the previous Conservative government in May 2024 were unlawful as they don’t account for the impact on marine life and the environment.

The current Labour government says it is committed to not issuing new field exploration licenses; however, it has no plans to revoke existing ones.

An exploration licence does not necessarily lead to production, though Oceana’s lawyers said in court filings that they provide “a clear pathway towards extracting oil and gas”.

Its lawyer Zoe Leventhal said the wider impact should be considered at the licensing stage, when the authorities can assess “all the sites across all the areas at the same time”.

The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, however, argued it was not possible to know the impact on climate change before the scale of any production was known. The government’s lawyer Beth Grogan argued in court filings that the licences were for “purely exploratory activities … and will not inevitably lead to consent for production or the burning of hydrocarbons”.

Oceana argued that an example from earlier this year should be followed, when a British court quashed approvals for two oil and gas projects known as Rosebank and Jackdaw, led by Equinor ASA and Shell Plc respectively. The ruling forced the fields to re-apply for environmental permits.

Naomi Tilley, Campaign Lead for Oceana UK, said: “Today in court we will see government lawyers sit down on the side of Big Oil, and in opposition to those who represent the ocean, nature, and our collective future. Labour has made a welcome commitment to ending new oil and gas licences and to building a future powered by clean, reliable sources of energy. They now need to hold true to that and choose the right side of history….We need to prioritise thriving seas and flourishing communities over short-term profits and greed.”