August EWJ 24 - Flipbook - Page 18
downstream when the oil produced from the wells is
processed and used because such processes are regulated by other, non-planning regimes and the planning authority ‘can assume that these regimes will operate
effectively to avoid or mitigate the scope for material environmental harm’. This is a reference to paragraph 194 of
the National Planning Policy Framework4 which
states:
downstream emissions (which were nearly two orders
of magnitude greater than the direct emissions) this
calculation is sufficient and could be described in
the context of overall national average energy and
non-energy end uses. However, in providing information in the EIA to inform the planning authority,
the practitioner might be expected to start with the
economic case presented by the developer to support
the planning application: how much oil would be produced; what it might be used for (and where); and its
contribution to Gross Domestic Product (GDP). A
range of end use scenarios could be considered which,
if considered sufficiently plausible to support the economic argument for the project, would imply a high
degree of causality and hence, justification for including the GHG emissions associated with these end uses
in the EIA. The relevant control regime for each end
use scenario could also be identified as part of the assessment to determine how the effect of climate
change caused by the end use of the extracted oil
would be minimised. Reporting this information in
the EIA will help inform the planning authority in
making a decision.
‘The focus of planning policies and decisions should be on
whether proposed development is an acceptable use of land,
rather than the control of processes or emissions (where these
are subject to separate pollution control regimes). Planning
decisions should assume that these regimes will operate
effectively. …’
The Supreme Court concludes this is ‘a clear legal error to
regard this aspect of planning policy as a justification for limiting the
scope of an EIA. An assumption made for planning purposes that nonplanning regimes will operate effectively to avoid or mitigate significant
environmental effects does not remove the obligation to identify and assess
in the EIA the effects which the planning authority is assuming will be
avoided or mitigated.’
Is excluding indirect GHG emissions from an EIA
good practice?
A climate change practitioner’s contribution to this
discussion might include first referring to relevant
guidance. In this instance, the most applicable guidance would be that published by the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment (IEMA) in
February 20225 and, in particular, the second bullet of
section 5.2, which states (own underlining):
Is the GHG Protocol an appropriate reference for
describing GHG emissions?
The Supreme Court judgment provides some clarity
on referring to the GHG Protocol6 to describe GHG
emissions. The aim of the GHG Protocol is to develop
internationally accepted GHG accounting and reporting standards for business and to promote their
broad adoption. The terminology has become widely
used in reporting GHG emissions in EIAs, supported
by IEMA guidance 4 (see Section 5.2, first bullet
point). The terminology describes emissions as either:
Scope 1, which covers direct emissions from owned or
controlled sources; Scope 2, which includes indirect
emissions from the generation of purchased energy
or heat; and Scope 3, which encompasses all other indirect emissions within a company's value chain, both
upstream and downstream. This terminology is useful
when reporting emissions within an EIA and in identifying opportunities for reducing emissions. The oil
production project in Surrey reported its direct emissions (i.e. Scope 1 emissions) and, as the intention was
to generate electricity on-site, would not have any
Scope 2 emissions to report. Upstream Scope 3 emissions would include those associated with the supply of
materials and services during the construction and
operation of the oil production facility. Downstream
Scope 3 emissions are those associated with the transport, refining, processing and use of the oil extracted.
‘The assessment should seek to quantify the difference in GHG
emissions between the proposed project and the baseline scenario (the alternative project/solution in place of the proposed
project). Assessment results should reflect the difference in
whole life net GHG emissions between the two options.’
This would support the argument that the EIA should
not be limited to including only direct GHG emissions
from the project itself. One alternative, of course,
would be to use a renewable energy source rather than
fossil fuels. Experience in both reporting carbon emissions as part of an EIA and reviewing assessments undertaken by others indicates that common practice is
to take the whole life approach, including consideration of how such emissions are regulated and could be
reduced, at the local, regional and national scale. Following this guidance and reporting whole life emissions, including how they are regulated and reduced,
in the EIA will help inform the planning authority in
making a decision.
There is an emerging category, albeit first proposed
in 2013 but not yet officially recognised by the GHG
Protocol; Scope 4 emissions. These are defined as the
reductions in GHG emissions that occur outside of a
product's life cycle or value chain but are a direct result of using that product. An example of this would
be a company manufacturing an energy-efficient
washing machine, with the emissions saved by consumers using this appliance instead of a less efficient
benchmark model reported as Scope 4 emissions. This
Secondly, the potential uncertainty of whether the oil
extracted by the project will be combusted and hence,
produce GHG emissions could be reduced with a refinement to the calculation of GHG emissions. In this
instance, the calculation was undertaken by an officer
for the planning authority who assumed all the oil
produced would be combusted and applied a standard emission factor based on this assumption. For the
purposes of demonstrating the relative scale of these
EXPERT WITNESS JOURNAL
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AUGUST 2024
