A US federal court has overturned a huge offshore oil and gas lease sale on the basis that the auction had failed to take full account of impacts on climate, in a significant victory for environmental campaigners.

Joe Biden’s administration had reluctantly opened 80m acres of drilling leases in the Gulf of Mexico in November — the largest auction in US history. The move drew accusations of contradicting the president’s pledge to lead a “transition” away from oil.

But in a ruling late on Thursday, Rudolph Contreras, a district court judge for the District of Columbia, said the government had acted “arbitrarily and capriciously” by failing to include foreign consumption in its calculation of greenhouse gas emissions that would result from the development of the leases.