HUNDREDS of experts have signed an open letter demanding a halt to the issuing of new oil and gas licences.

The 700 academics from institutions across Britain have joined forces to call on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to block all new oil and gas in British waters, a commitment already given by Labour’s shadow climate secretary Ed Miliband.

The government is under pressure from scientists and campaigners to refuse to allow Norwegian oil giant Equinor to drill in the Rosebank oil and gas field — in line for a £3.75 billion subsidy — which lies north west of Shetland in the north Atlantic.

Any decision to expand the sector, experts argue, would make the critical Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 1.5°C goal for limiting global temperature increases even more difficult to achieve.

One signatory, University of Cambridge Professor Emily Shuckburgh, said: “The IPCC made it clear that immediate action is required to avert a climate catastrophe.

“Now is the time to be investing in the technologies of the future, not the past.”