The think tank, Carbon Tracker, has found that the cost of extracting oil from Cambo would be too high to make it profitable if the COP26 climate summit succeeds in limiting global warming to well below two degrees centigrade.
Campaigners have reiterated their calls for Cambo to be cancelled, saying its climate cost would be “devastating”. The Labour Party has said it should not go ahead.
Two oil companies, Siccar Point Energy and Shell, have applied for permission from the UK Government to start taking up to 800 million barrels of oil from the Cambo field. But the development has run into widespread opposition from environmental groups, experts and politicians.
On 1 November 16 environmental groups wrote to the offshore oil and gas regulator, OPRED, demanding that consent for Cambo be refused. In August the First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, asked the UK Government to “reassess” licences for oil and gas projects such as Cambo.