Norway’s Supreme Court has ruled that the government’s approval of three offshore oilfields was invalid, in a landmark judgment that forces the country’s petroleum industry to account for the climate damage caused by burning the oil and gas it produces.
By six votes to five, the court on Friday found that the approvals for Equinor’s Breidablikk field, Aker BP’s Tyrving field and the much larger Yggdrasil development area were unlawful because their environmental assessments ignored the emissions released when the extracted oil and gas are eventually burned.
The case was brought by Greenpeace Nordic and Nature and Youth, the Norwegian branch of Young Friends of the Earth, which argued in 2023 that the government had failed to assess so-called Scope 3 emissions — the greenhouse gases produced by end users of the fuel, rather than by the platforms themselves. Lower courts had already ruled against the government, in January 2024 and again on appeal in November 2025.
All eleven judges agreed that combustion emissions must be assessed before a field is approved. The six-to-five split concerned whether the assessment must also take account of the cumulative emissions from other existing and approved developments on the Norwegian continental shelf. The court sat in plenary formation, with eleven judges rather than the usual five, a format reserved for cases of particular importance.
The ruling does not mean production must stop. Breidablikk and Tyrving are already producing, and Yggdrasil — described as the largest ongoing project on the Norwegian continental shelf — is due to start producing next year. The court stressed that the oil companies were not parties to the case and that the invalid approvals do not automatically cancel their licences. Instead, the government must now reconsider each field under the correct requirements and decide whether the permits can be reissued.
Aker BP said it expected Yggdrasil to start as planned next summer. Norway’s Green Party called for an immediate halt to production at the two producing fields. The state was ordered to pay the environmental groups five million Norwegian kroner in legal costs.
The decision lands midway through the COP31 climate summit in Antalya, where governments are deadlocked over fossil fuels, and it will be closely watched by campaigners and lawyers challenging oil and gas approvals on climate grounds in other countries. It sets a new test for Norway, western Europe’s largest oil and gas producer: future developments can only proceed once the full climate cost of the fuel they produce has been properly assessed.
Sources: Reuters, https://www.globalbankingandfinance.com/norway-supreme-court-rules-against-government-oilfields-case/ ; AFP, https://www.rapporteur.com/news/norways-highest-court-cancels-oil-licences-in-landmark-ruling/ ; Supreme Court of Norway, judgment HR-2026-2428-S, 13 November 2026.
