Meeting of the Parliament 20 January 2016
A great deal has been done by Scottish ministers and many of us to welcome and congratulate the consensus on the setting of targets. Not enough has been done to reach those targets.
The point that I am making is not about our tailpipe emissions. It is about the carbon that we are digging out of the ground and pumping out from under the sea. Whether that ends up on Scotland’s emissions inventory or someone else’s, if that fossil carbon is taken out of the ground, it will end up in the atmosphere. That is the responsibility that fossil fuel-producing countries will have to acknowledge. I do not believe that any has yet.
We are setting out the case that the changes are not only desirable and inevitable but already upon us. Those countries that deny that reality will fail to realise the positive opportunities that that change brings about. Already, there are those bidding for oil and gas decommissioning jobs in Scotland, and they are up against competition from other countries. If we allow others to develop the global reputation and the skillset to undertake that decommissioning work, we will be left behind in the race to build that alternative industry.
Scotland has been here before. Let us not go there again. Let us not see an economic, industrial change coming down the line and fail to be ready to adapt to it, leaving communities stranded as a result.