Plans to expand UK’s Heathrow airport by architecture firm Grimshaw are in disarray as a court has deemed a third runway illegal due to climate change implications.
The UK’s court of appeal ruled today that a new runway was illegal because government ministers had not taken into account the Paris Agreement – a treaty between countries to try and keep global temperature rise below 1.5 degrees Celsius.
It is the first time a court has passed a ruling based on the Paris Agreement and potentially could set a precedent for challenges brought against projects with high emissions.
Environmental campaigners won appeal
UK architecture practice Grimshaw masterplanned a “sustainable but affordable” £14 billion extension to Heathrow in 2016. Renders showed a new terminal planted with trees underneath an undulating glass roof.
