Publication - FOI/EIR release

Greenhouse gas emissions from North Sea oil and gas activity: EIR release

Published: 2 September 2024
Directorate: Chief Economist Directorate
Topic: Environment and climate change, Public sector
FOI reference: EIR/202400410261
Date received: 22 April 2024
Date responded: 15 May 2024

Information request and response under the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004.

Information requested

You asked if the Scottish Government has estimated the share of greenhouse gas emissions from North Sea oil and gas activity which is attributable to Scotland. You also asked the following supplementary questions:

(1.) What is the progress on emissions reduction vs the 1990 baseline for Scotland, including its share of North Sea oil and gas emissions?

(2.) How does this progress compare to the other UK nations, all with their shares of North Sea oil and gas emissions included?

(3.) By what year does the Scottish Government expect Scotland to reach net zero with Scotland’s share of North Sea oil and gas emissions included?

Response

As the information you have requested is 'environmental information' for the purposes of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs), we are required to deal with your request under those Regulations. We are applying the exemption at section 39(2) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), so that we do not also have to deal with your request under FOISA.

This exemption is subject to the 'public interest test'. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption, because there is no public interest in dealing with the same request under two different regimes. This is essentially a technical point and has no material effect on the outcome of your request.

I enclose a copy of some of the information you requested; with correspondence in the form of .pdf fifiles, and two Microsoft Excel spreadsheets.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have some of the information you have requested. Therefore we are refusing your request under the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs. The reasons why that exception applies are explained below.

The Scottish Government has attempted to assess emissions associated with the Scottish component of North Sea (UK continental shelf - UKCS) oil and gas activities on two occasions: In 2012 ( for the year 2009); and in 2019 (for the years 2008 to 2017 inclusive). The data used to generate these estimates is not available prior to 2008, and the analysis has not been performed for years after 2017. As a result, we are unable to assess emissions reduction from the 1990 baseline. These analyses concerned Scotland only so no information is held on the potential allocations to other Nations of the UK. No assessment of the impact of inclusion of UKCS activities upon net-zero has been performed, although the attached correspondence in 2012 (written prior to the establishment of a net-zero target) does reference some external forecasts of emissions and considers potential emissions out to 2050.

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