After Heathrow, what other projects could be cancelled over the climate crisis?

It is hard to see how the Paris Agreement is compatible with plans to expand airports at Birmingham, Leeds Bradford, Manchester and Southampton, writes John Rentoul

Environmental activists outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London on Thursday (Reuters)

If the third runway at Heathrow has been blocked because the government failed to take climate change into account, how many other carbon-heavy projects are now at risk?

That is not in fact what the Court of Appeal ruled on Thursday. It said only that Chris Grayling, the former transport secretary, had failed to take into account the Paris Agreement when he gave the go-ahead to Heathrow’s expansion.

All the government had to do, therefore, was to say that it had taken the treaty into account. Other countries seem able to go ahead with new runways while being signatories to the Paris accords. Indeed, other airports in the UK are going ahead with expansion.