Meeting of the Parliament 07 May 2014
As it says in the Scottish National Party amendment,
“Scotland has a rich diversity of energy sources including a very successful oil and gas sector and growing expertise in renewables including wind, wave and tidal”.
SNP thinking on energy goes back decades to the early days of oil and gas extraction in the 1970s and 1980s. We viewed North Sea oil wealth as a source of investment in the industries of the future, including energy conservation and alternative energy. The late Stephen Maxwell reminded us of that in his book “Arguing for Independence”, which was published in 2012. Stephen went on to point out that Scotland and Norway are similarly blessed or cursed, depending on one’s outlook. Both have huge hydrocarbon deposits and both have huge renewables potential.
From the early days of North Sea oil extraction, the SNP talked about slower extraction and legacy potential. The Norwegians practised that while we could only look with envy during the long Thatcher years and Blair’s continuation of that extractive mentality. All that time, Norway insisted on a big stake for Statoil to balance what was called the greed of the seven sisters of big oil. Norway also insisted on a slower rate of extraction, with tighter environmental and safety laws. The recent helicopter accident rate in the UK sector contrasts sharply with that in the Norwegian sector.
In those pre-devolution days—when the Green Party was only being founded—the SNP was already thinking about what independence could bring for energy policy. Fast forward to Scotland today, and the agreement between our two parties that independence is essential is a given. It is increasingly possible to decarbonise our energy needs and to manage our wealth for a fairer Scandinavian style of social democracy that is light years from the attitude of successive UK Governments.
Jason Anderson, the head of climate and energy policy in the World Wide Fund for Nature’s European policy office, has hailed Scotland as a
“forward thinking nation”
that is
“in the vanguard of the renewables revolution”
and has the most ambitious climate change laws.
The SNP proposes a list of green gains from independence, which Richard Lochhead set out last week. Therefore, this debate on a wish to decarbonise our energy sources should have that trajectory in full focus. The Green Party should not ignore the fact that hydrocarbon development and Aberdeen’s worldwide success story have given us a huge skills base. It is up to us to channel that expertise towards the full range of renewables development in the service not only of Scotland but, through interconnectors, of our neighbours across Europe, and of the planet as we tackle the scourge of climate change.
We can enshrine environmental protection in a written constitution. We can go past our leading renewables production record of nearly 50 per cent of electricity output and ensure that we reach 100 per cent by 2020, with an unswerving focus on delivery of onshore and offshore clean power, through the certain knowledge that a Scottish Government that is in charge of all of our policies will ensure that business investment has security.
UK Governments have had an extractive mentality from the 1970s to this day: let us recall the dash for gas, their nuclear obsession and their total lack of legacy planning that could turn the one-off oil wealth into the fund for future generations that our people need.