Paid To Pollute

Paid To Pollute:

Climate Activists Launch A Legal Case Against The UK Government

On the 11th of May, it was announced that three claimants are taking the UK Government to court over pay-outs of millions of pounds to the big oil and gas companies. The case is based upon the huge amounts of taxpayer’s money the UK Government has used to prop up oil and gas companies whilst continuing to promise the lowering of emissions and a green future. The claimants aim to stop public money going to big polluters and state that companies such as BP and Shell have actually been paid to pollute the world, hence, the name of the campaign. The UK Government was paying out more money to these companies than they were receiving back in tax.

On behalf of the campaigners, the law firm Leigh Day have applied to the high court for a judicial review of the state-owned Oil and Gas Authority’s (OGA) strategy to ‘maximise economic recovery’. A judicial review is the process by which a judge reviews the lawfulness of a decision made by a public body. In this case, the judge will review the OGA’s interpretation of “maximising economic recovery” and the legality of the strategy they implemented, which “encourages companies to produce oil and gas without considering the economic repercussions of that on the public purse and the UK as a whole”. The claimants also want to highlight “the tax breaks that make the UK the most profitable country in the world for oil companies to develop big offshore fields”.

Global Majority vs the UK Government is another case that was announced earlier this year. Global Majority is taking the UK Government to court on the grounds that it is “in violation of its duty to safeguard our rights, by continuing funding of ecocide and genocide and securing 4?c warming”. The case brought states that because the Government is knowingly contributing to a 4?c warming of the planet, it is violating various fundamental human rights, including the right to life, the right to a private and family life, the right to not be discriminated against. These are articles 2, 8, and 14 of the Human Rights Act 1998, which sets out the fundamental rights and freedoms that everyone in the UK is entitled to.

The allegations made by Global Majority state that the UK Government is jeopardising and endangering the lives of not only it’s citizens but also those living in “the global south, our global colonised siblings, and the working class, diaspora (displaced people) and young peoples in the global north”. The allegations go on to highlight the fact that the world will not suffer the effects of climate change and global warming equally.

The Global Majority case was filed on the 1st of May and the UK Government has 21 days from then to respond. The court will then decide if the case will go to a full hearing.

The UK is set to host the 26th UN Climate Conference later this year in Glasgow. The gravity of the event will put the Government under pressure to perform on their promises of net zero carbon by 2050. The abovementioned cases bring to light the Government’s true intentions and the failures of their empty promises.