Hansard

I am pleased to speak on behalf of my committee. We considered three aspects of the climate change plan update: electricity, industry and negative emissions technologies, which were mentioned earlier. I will highlight a handful of points under each of those headings.

First, I will say something about an earlier piece of work by the committee. Last summer, we reported on the findings of our energy inquiry, and the idea of the energy quadrilemma warrants repeating in this debate. We were told that it is crucial to strike a balance between a quartet of potentially competing factors: climate change, security of supply, affordability and public acceptability. That basically means that we should be asking ourselves where our energy comes from, how we use it, how responsible we are and what we consume.

The aim, of course, is to reduce carbon emissions and to choose the best available options to achieve that. Scotland has almost halved its greenhouse gas emissions in 30 years, which is pretty good going. Now, we just need to do that again in the next 11 years. That comes with challenges, but it brings opportunities, too.

The challenges relating to electricity take the form of planning, grid connection and charging. However, we also have a number of comparative advantages. We have the workforce in oil and gas and in renewables. We have natural assets to generate wind, hydroelectric, wave and tidal power. We also have policy momentum, with the 26th United Nations climate change conference of the parties—COP26—taking place in Glasgow later in the year.

A key point from our evidence was the importance of alignment; without it, we will reduce the chances of renewable energy contributing to a green recovery. A year ago, three of our committee members visited Orkney for our energy inquiry and witnessed the integration of generation, use and storage in the form of the ReFLEX project.

We would like to see a tool for monitoring in the annual energy statement. We suggest that that statement should be a stand-alone document that can show progress made in a meaningful, prominent and accessible way for policy makers, parliamentarians and the public.

When we came to speak with industry, it was disappointing not to hear directly from Ineos, as the company is such a significant player in the sector. That was not to be, but we heard on its behalf from the Chemical Industries Association. We were told about the high operational costs of decarbonising, and the witnesses were blunt about the risks of carbon leakage—that does not mean leakage in the technical sense; it means the potential economic loss if businesses and jobs move elsewhere. We were reminded that that is the economics of it. We therefore recommend that the Scottish Government prioritise that aspect of its policy around incentive, support and competitiveness and that it continue to work in partnership with the industry. We also encourage our successor committee, in the next session, to focus on industrial decarbonisation.

The third and final strand of our work was on negative emissions technologies. Those are technologies that can permanently remove carbon from the atmosphere, and it is fair to say that expectations on that front are ambitious. Chris Stark reckoned that what is set out by the Scottish Government is entirely feasible, subject to significant investment and political and commercial will. He said that developments would have to happen at scale and that a Scottish site would need to be established by 2029.

We were told that Scotland has the geology, skills and infrastructure that make us well placed to lead. However, there was evidence from some people who voiced concern about what is seen as the lack of an alternative strategy.

The minister, Paul Wheelhouse, must balance the risks and rewards between Government, industry and consumers. He spoke of a place-based approach.

A number of witnesses said that the cost of decarbonisation should be spread fairly across society, and Mr Wheelhouse stressed the importance of partnership working. He praised initiatives such as the Grangemouth future industry board, the Scottish industrial decarbonisation partnership and the north-east carbon capture usage and storage initiative—or NECCUS to its friends.

Our committee welcomes the placing of importance on those partnerships, as business and community buy-in must be an essential part of our plans. We would like to see a little more detail on the 2032 target for gross emissions, so we recommend that the Scottish Government prepare and publish an industrial road map that will take us there.

Those were a few of our findings. I hope that they chime with the findings of the other committees. I look forward to hearing more and to hearing from the Government in winding up the debate.