Nine environmental campaign organisations have urged the government today to end planning policies that favour fossil fuels.

The coalition said the polices were “dangerous for the climate” and “unfair to communities”.

The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) – the blueprint for planning decisions – gives “great weight” to the what are described as the benefits of onshore oil and gas extraction.

This makes it more likely that decisionmakers will approve fossil fuel projects, even though the International Energy Agency (IEA) warned four years ago there should be no new oil and gasfields if the world were to avoid climate catastrophe.

In a letter to deputy prime minister Angela Rayner, the organisations urge the government to:

• Remove the “great weight” given to oil and gas extraction in the NPPF
• Ensure new National Development Management Policies (NDMPs) reflect climate science and exclude fossil fuels
• Stop councils being forced to plan positively for oil and gas projects 

The letter was coordinated by Friends of the Earth and supported by Greenpeace, National Trust, The Wildlife Trusts, CRPE, Centre for Sustainable Energy, Coal Action Network, Campaign for National Parks and Wildlife and Countryside Link.

They argue that continuing to back fossil fuels threatens communities already on the frontline of flooding, heatwaves and rising energy bills. The planning policies also undermine the UK’s credibility on climate leadership, they said.

The letter comes as residents in North Yorkshire are opposing plans to develop two new onshore gasfields.

The companies behind these proposals, at Burniston and Foxholes, have stressed what they say are the benefits to energy security and to local and national economies.

But the coalition told Ms Rayner:

“the unfair positive weighting [for fossil fuels in the NPPF] often trumps the many negative adverse significant … land-use impacts of oil and gas production, which is wholly unfair to communities, and dangerous for the climate.”

The letter added:

“Changing planning policy in this way for the better will show leadership on climate change when some other political parties seek to ignore the impacts from rising sea levels, increased flood risk, prolonged heat stress, a further depleted natural environment and the disproportionate impact these have on low-income households and developing countries.”

Mike Childs, head of science, policy and research at Friends of the Earth, said:

“It is indefensible that in 2025 our planning system still stacks the deck in favour of more fossil fuels. This government was elected on a manifesto that promised independent clean energy by 2030 and assurances it would take ‘decisive action’ to achieve that. Allowing bias towards fossil fuel extraction to linger in the pages of national planning policy fully contradicts that ambition.

“Communities have fought tooth and nail to keep drilling and fracking out of their backyards. The government must listen and remove predisposition towards fossil fuel projects once and for all.”

 Dr Douglas Parr, policy director at Greenpeace UK, said:

“The privileged position of fossil fuels is deeply embedded in our laws and regulations. A century of easy access to politicians has let the oil and gas lobby entrench their special treatment in ways that distort both democracy and the market in their favour. As we enter an era where our future economic well-being is based on clean technologies rather than burning stuff, those deep seams of entitlement need to be removed if the UK is going to benefit from the 21st century economy and fulfil the government’s clean energy ambitions.”

Jackie Copley, campaigns lead for CPRE, said:

“Our group in Lancashire found fracking cannot be done safely in the Bowland Shale after working with the site operator, regulators, and the local community. In any case, seismic events occurred even when relatively small amounts of frack fluid were used in the exploration phase, which led to the government’s moratorium.”

• Recent polling by Friends of the Earth found that 80% of British people support the expansion of the UK’s renewable energy infrastructure, including most Conservative and Reform voters. The survey also found that 78% of people backed those responsible for pollution, such as fossil fuel companies, paying more to help fund environmental action.
• The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, said yesterday that new drilling in the North Sea is a “cornerstone of Britain’s future”. But a column today by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in the Telegraph said: “Kemi Badenoch’s plan to extract every last hydrocarbon from UK waters would not raise this country’s long-term output of oil and gas by more than homeopathic amounts. And even if it did, it would not move the needle on UK energy prices.”