Projected climate loss and damages from new UK oil and gas fields unequivocally show their destruction of economic value globally

The world is trying to limit how much the planet warms, a goal that requires leaving vast amounts of oil and gas buried underground. This is not just an environmental rule but an economic calculation: burning fossil fuels releases heat-trapping gases that damage the global economy by disrupting weather, destroying crops, and threatening infrastructure. Scientists have long known that these future costs, often called the "social cost of carbon," are real and growing. They represent the price society pays for every ton of pollution released, a bill that arrives in the form of floods, fires, and lost productivity decades down the line. For years, governments have weighed the immediate profits of drilling new wells against these distant, diffuse costs, often treating the two as separate issues. The question has become whether it is possible to approve new oil projects without causing more financial harm than good, a balance that is becoming harder to find as the climate crisis accelerates.

A new study from Imperial College London takes a hard look at this balance, focusing on two major oil and gas fields currently awaiting approval in the United Kingdom: Rosebank and Jackdaw. These projects, located in the North Sea, are being promoted by their developers as vital for national energy security and job creation. Proponents argue they will generate billions in economic value for the UK. However, the researchers behind this study decided to run the numbers differently. Instead of looking at the project in isolation, they calculated the total future economic damage caused by the carbon dioxide that would be released when the oil and gas from these fields are eventually burned by consumers around the world. They used the best available data on how temperature rises hurt economic growth, applying it to the specific amount of pollution these fields would produce over their entire lifetimes.

The findings are stark. The researchers estimate that the climate damage caused by the Rosebank and Jackdaw fields will cost the global economy between 170 billion and 483 billion British pounds. When they compared this massive figure to the economic value the projects are expected to generate for the UK, which is estimated at roughly 28.7 billion pounds, a clear picture emerged. Even under the most conservative assumptions, the future damage is at least six times greater than the immediate economic benefit. If the researchers used less conservative estimates, the damage could be seventeen times larger than the value created. This means that for every pound of value these fields bring to the UK economy, they could be destroying six to seventeen pounds of value elsewhere in the global economy.

The study also explored how much of this global damage would need to fall on the UK itself to make the project a net loss for the country. The researchers found that if just 5.9 percent of the total global climate damage from these fields were felt within the UK's borders, the project would destroy more value for the British economy than it creates. This threshold is not a distant fantasy; the UK is already highly exposed to climate risks, from heatwaves and droughts to rising sea levels. Recent summers have shown that extreme weather can cost the UK billions in lost output, and the study suggests that the share of damage falling on the UK is entirely feasible given its vulnerability. In fact, the researchers note that the UK's historical share of global climate damage is already higher than this 5.9 percent figure when looking at past data.

The author emphasizes that their calculations are likely a conservative underestimate. The models they used focus on how temperature rises affect economic growth but do not fully account for other severe consequences like climate-related deaths, the destruction of coastal cities from sea-level rise, or the specific devastation of extreme weather events. Furthermore, the social cost of carbon is expected to rise as the planet gets hotter, meaning the damage caused by emissions released in the future could be even higher than what the study projects. The researchers also point out that the benefits of these projects are concentrated among a small group of wealthy investors and shareholders, while the costs are spread across the global population, with the heaviest burdens falling on the world's most vulnerable nations and communities.

Despite the clear economic argument against approval, the UK government has been considering a "pragmatic" approach that might allow these fields to go ahead, citing energy security and job creation. However, the study challenges the idea that these fields will actually lower energy bills or secure supply, noting that the oil and gas produced will largely be sold on international markets rather than staying in the UK. The research suggests that the path to energy security and affordability lies in replacing fossil fuels with domestic renewable energy, a transition that avoids the massive economic liabilities of new oil projects. The author concludes that approving these fields would be an inefficient use of resources, effectively transferring wealth from the future and from vulnerable populations to current shareholders, while destroying far more economic value than it creates. The numbers indicate that the decision to approve or reject these fields is not just a matter of energy policy, but a fundamental choice about whether to accept a net loss for the global economy.