London: Environmentalists were jubilant on after a British court effectively halted Heathrow Airport's planned expansion, ruling that the government had not consider  the commitments it  agreed to in Paris to curb global warming when approving the project.

London’s Heathrow Airport.Credit:PA

Heathrow Airport said it would appeal the decision but Boris Johnson's Government said it had no plans to challenge the ruling, which effectively stops dead the controversial £14 billion ($27 billion) plan to build a third runway to increase capacity by 50 per cent at Europe's busiest airport.

Friends of the Earth successfully challenged the project in Britain's Court of Appeal, arguing that the government did not take into account its obligations to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels.

The court upheld the appeal but said its verdict was not a ruling on the merits of the Heathrow project.

"We have not found that a national policy statement supporting this project is necessarily incompatible with the United Kingdom's commitment to reducing carbon emissions and mitigating climate change under the Paris Agreement, or with any other policy the Government may adopt or international obligation it may undertake," the court said.

Aircraft come in to land at Heathrow airport over nearby houses in London, Credit:Getty

"The consequence of our decision is that the Government will now have the opportunity to reconsider the (national policy statement) in accordance with the clear statutory requirements that Parliament has imposed."

The ruling is a welcome escape clause for Boris Johnson who famously vowed to lie down in front of bulldozers to stop the third runway going ahead.  The Department for Transport said the government wouldn't challenge the ruling.

"We take seriously our commitments on the environment, clean air and reducing carbon emissions," the department said in a statement. "We will carefully consider this complex judgment and set out our next steps in due course."

Johnson's Labour successor at London Mayor, Sadiq Khan also welcomed the ruling.

The expansion of Heathrow Airport has attracted local and environmental opposition.Credit:AP

"If we're not flying through Heathrow, we'll be flying through Paris Charles de Gaulle, we'll be handing control of our trading economy to the French," he said.

Heathrow will appeal.

Will Rundle from Friends of the Earth said the ruling was a "massive victory" and "climate justice" for future generations.

"Heathrow is already one of the biggest emitters of carbon dioxide in the country and expansion would have made that even worse," Rundle said.

"That would have contradicted our own parliament's declaration of a climate emergency and it would have contradicted our commitments under the Paris Agreement."

Rundle said the ruling was precedent-setting prompting climate campaigner Greta Thunberg to tweet "imagine when we all start taking the Paris Agreement into account."

Britain's Conservative party had pledged the country to be carbon neutral by 2050 and is pledging other nations to make the same commitment at the climate change summit in Glasgow it is hosting later this year.

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