Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom

Related legal acts

Key definition

Climate Change definition

What does Climate Change mean? In legal practice, climate change describes long-term shifts in the Earth’s climate that inform environmental regulation, planning and EIA, governance and disclosure (ESG/TCFD), finance and litigation. Across the UK and Ireland it is generally a descriptive term rather than one exhaustively defined in statute or case law; climate legislation (for example, the Climate Change Act 2008 and analogous Acts in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Ireland) addresses related concepts such as greenhouse gas emissions, mitigation, adaptation and net zero targets, and instruments adopt their own definitions (for example, the UNFCCC’s focus on anthropogenic change). The term refers to identifiable, persistent changes (typically...

Onshore Petroleum Licensing in Great Britain: NSTA regime, devolved powers, licence types, application and transfer processes, security and relinquishment, and fracking moratoria; with a note on Northern Ireland.

Published by a LexisNexis Energy expert

Practice notes

Oil & Gas—Onshore licensing regime Regulatory body

Historically, oversight of the UK’s oil and gas resources rested mainly with the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), acting for the Secretary of State (SoS). Acting on Sir Ian Wood’s Recommendations in his review of oil and gas recovery on the UK Continental Shelf (UKCS) (the Wood Review), the Government created a new independent regulator, the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA) (formerly the Oil and Gas Authority), to assume DECC’s regulatory and licensing roles for all oil and gas exploration and production across the United Kingdom and the UKCS, covering applicable exploration and production operations throughout those areas, as announced by Government. On 14 July 2016, it was confirmed that DECC would be amalgamated with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, forming the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). Subsequently, on 7 February 2023, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) was set up and assumed the energy brief previously held by the now-defunct BEIS, which no longer exists, including responsibility for Health, Safety and Environmental regulation of the UK’s oil and gas resources...

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Web page updated on 21/05/2026

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