Meeting of the Parliament 06 December 2022
I absolutely agree with that. Recently, the BBC’s “Dispatches” programme showed that a quarter of our existing charging points do not work. There is no incentive there for many communities—particularly those in rural areas—to move towards using electric vehicles.
What about heating in buildings? How does the Scottish Government’s decision to cut the energy efficiency budget by £133 million, instead of tackling why the poorly designed schemes are not being utilised, show leadership? We have a shameful level of fuel poverty in Scotland, but we know that properly insulating our homes not only cuts fuel bills but cuts fuel use and therefore our emissions.
On the third big emitter, which is agriculture and land, it seems that progress still does not go far enough. It is six years since the EU referendum, and the clock is ticking on the end of the transition period when it comes to meeting our climate commitments. The only clock that seems to have stopped since 2016 has been the Government’s clock with regard to laying out what post-Brexit agricultural support will look like. We have had dither and delay, but we have not had the detail, direction or support that our farmers and crofters need to properly plan and make the necessary changes. That is not climate leadership.
Even in those areas where we have made good progress on cutting emissions in energy production—I recognise the significant progress that has been made on renewable energy—we have failed to show the leadership that is needed to deliver the jobs-led just transition that we need. The Scottish Government’s 2010 “Low Carbon Scotland” economic strategy promised 130,000 renewable jobs by 2020, and we were told that Scotland would be the “Saudi Arabia of renewables”. However, the Fraser of Allander Institute’s recent report has estimated that the number of renewable jobs that have been created is 27,000—only one fifth of that figure.
When we consider which sectors can tackle Scotland’s woeful economic growth and create a green, fairer country with good, secure jobs wherever in the country people live, we see that all roads lead to renewables. Net zero targets are not a barrier to economic growth, but the path towards it.
The long-term answer to the energy bills crisis and the climate crisis, and to delivering jobs growth, is not a dash for gas but a sprint for home-grown clean energy. However, we need not only to keep speeding up the race for renewables—for example, by properly resourcing Marine Scotland and our councils’ planning departments so that the consent process recognises that urgency—but to spread the benefits. We cannot repeat the mistakes of the past, which have meant that none of the wind turbines that are carpeting much of our countryside are even manufactured in Scotland. We need a proper industrial strategy with clear targets: 100 per cent clean energy; 12GW of additional onshore wind by 2030; 11GW of offshore wind; and between 4GW and 6GW of solar capacity.
We need a clear route and timeline for a steady stream of work to give supply chain companies the confidence to invest, with the backing of Government investment, in Scottish ports, skills and factories so that those supply chain jobs come to Scottish firms. That is why Labour has consistently called for every penny that is raised from the ScotWind leasing round to be ring fenced for a renewables fund to invest in making our supply chains ready to deliver.
The Scottish Government has offshored Scotland’s wind on the cheap; we cannot afford to offshore the jobs as well, and we should not be offshoring the profits to largely overseas-owned multinationals. That is why Labour also supports the establishment of a publicly owned energy firm to invest in technology and jobs of the future. It is what Labour in Wales is doing; it is what the next UK Labour Government will do; and it is what the SNP and the Greens used to want to do but are no longer supporting.
The lack of world leadership at COP27 should make us all even more determined to show more leadership here at home. We have ambitious targets to cut emissions by three quarters by 2030 and to reach net zero by 2045, but those targets will be meaningless if they are missed. Labour will support the Government’s motion, but my amendment urges Parliament to show leadership and to recognise that we do not yet have a plan, and that urgent action is needed to enable us to properly play our part in preventing the climate crisis from becoming a climate catastrophe.
I move amendment S6M-07093.1, to insert at end:
“; notes that the Scottish Government has repeatedly not met its own annual target for emissions; agrees that it is important for Scotland to lead by example through action and delivery, and calls on the Scottish Government to use all the powers available to it to realise Scotland’s full potential in the renewable energy sector, including consideration of establishing a publicly-owned energy company, to improve public transport, including by providing adequate funding for councils to establish municipal bus companies, to implement a bold industrial strategy to grow domestic supply chains and create local green jobs in communities across Scotland, and to take all necessary steps to secure a just transition to net zero.”
14:58Motions, questions or amendments mentioned by their reference code.
- S6M-07093.1 COP27 Outcomes Motion