ScotGov Energy Policy - Nose, Spite, Face?

Alf Young assesses the Scottish Government's energy policy and the financial impact of shutting down further gas and oil exploration.

We know she and her party want no new nuclear power stations on Scottish soil, once Torness stops generating base load electricity in 2030. But on the fate of oil and gas exploration and production, which played such a central role in the fiscal case for a Yes vote in 2014, there is no equivalent clarity. Will any government she leads give the Cambo field west of Shetland a green light? 

And if not, would an independent Scotland be prepared to continue with an energy supply system increasingly interconnected with not just England but with European landmass states from Norway to France? Is it OK to draw your energy supplies from nuclear or hydrocarbon sources if they are generated anywhere but Scotland?

But if the Cambo oil field does not go ahead, are we just cutting off out noses to spite our faces by continuing to import energy supplies from abroad - from the same nuclear or hydrocarbon sources?

Pushmi Pullyu Scottish Government (November 17, 2021)

Alf Young has some interesting things to say on energy policy, but he made me laugh with his description of the very different SNP vs Green take on the outcome of the COP26 conference.  

As the Cop26 summit drew to its protracted close in Glasgow last Saturday, Scotland’s first minister issued her take on what had been agreed. Nicola Sturgeon detected some clear signs of hope. “There can be no doubt that the Glasgow summit has made progress on some important issues,” she claimed.

But her new ministerial colleague, the Scottish Greens co-leader Patrick Harvie, struck an altogether gloomier tone. Noting the “last-minute weakening of what was already a profoundly inadequate text”, he branded the Glasgow Climate Pact “shameful”.

More to follow because it's essential reading.