Homeowners, renters and businesses should be given grants of up to £1000 each to help them insulate their homes and cut energy usage over the coming years.
Continue readingUK Should Give £1000 Energy Saving Grants For Families And Firms
Call For Bus Travel To Be Radically Overhauled, With Maximum Fares of £2
A new paper by Our Scottish Future today calls for bus travel to be radically overhauled, with maximum fares of £2 per urban journey, to support both the cost of living crisis and progress towards net zero.
Continue readingBack ‘COPUK’ to Deliver Climate Neutral Scotland
The UK Government, devolved nations, and regional mayors should convene a ‘COPUK’ summit to accelerate the drive towards a carbon-neutral nation, Our Scottish Future is proposing today.
The call is supported today by former Scottish Green party leader Robin Harper and two of England’s metro mayors who are urging UK Ministers to bring together politicians from across the nation to agree a joined-up plan to slash emissions.
The UK Government, devolved nations, and regional mayors should convene a ‘COPUK’ summit to accelerate the drive towards a carbon-neutral nation, Our Scottish Future is proposing today.
The call is supported today by former Scottish Green party leader Robin Harper and two of England’s metro mayors who are urging UK Ministers to bring together politicians from across the nation to agree a joined-up plan to slash emissions.
An Our Scottish Future report last month found that carbon cuts in Scotland are stagnating and said deeper cooperation between Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland was urgently required, including a new Office of Climate Responsibility.
Metro Mayor of Liverpool City Region Steve Rotherham and the Mayor of South Yorkshire Dan Jarvis today say a shared approach by all layers of government in the UK would help all parts of the nation.
Under the proposal, a ‘COPUK’ summit would agree a regulatory framework for the green transition and make sure UK spending is distributed equitably across the UK.
Mr Harper said: “The COP26 conference in Glasgow demonstrated once again that we cannot make change happen in the world without making it together. New global commitments on coal, on deforestation, and on support for developing nations have emerged in the last two weeks. They are all examples of nations laying aside their narrow self-interest to work for the common good.”
“We must ensure that this legacy is kept alive on our own shores over the coming months. None of the nations of the United Kingdom are currently doing enough to meet exacting targets to reduce carbon emissions. All of them – Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland – will only achieve their goals if they work in step – by bringing together expertise, finance, and resources to drive the green revolution.”
“We therefore call for a ‘COPUK’ to be staged within the next 12 months so that the UK Government, the devolved governments, and regional mayors can coordinate the historic step-change to a carbon neutral Britain.”
Mr Rotheram said: “Earlier this month, leaders from around the world came together at COP26 to try and chart our planet’s course toward net zero. Throughout those two weeks, the Prime Minister and government spoke a lot about co-operation and uniting in the face of the biggest threat any of us will ever face.”
“Today, we’re calling on the government to show that same spirit of common purpose by bringing together leaders from within the UK to help supercharge our own march to net zero. We should be setting an example for rest of the world to follow.”
“Mayors, councils and local leaders are at the forefront of the Green Industrial Revolution. COP UK would allow us all to put party politics aside and work together for the good of our planet. “
“I can think of nowhere better to host that conference than the Liverpool City Region. From large scale decarbonisation projects like Mersey Tidal Power and HyNet, to grassroots engagement and empowerment, we are showing the rest of the country how to take capture the public’s imagination while take meaningful action to save the environment.”
Mr Jarvis said: “To reach Net Zero we desperately need local decision-making backed up by a nation-wide strategy. Just as world leaders came together in Glasgow to set out plans for the world, we now need leaders across the UK to come together to map out a road to net zero for Britain.”
Report Backs A New ‘UK Office of Climate Responsibility’ to End Flatlining Carbon Cuts
Figures show Scottish carbon reductions “stagnating”
A new report by Our Scottish Future calls for the creation of a new green network of UK institutions to cut carbon emissions and warns current targets in Scotland will be missed without urgent action.
Written by sustainability expert Dr Peter Wood, the new paper – entitled “A Net Negative Nation – hitting Scotland’s climate targets” – recommends the UK and devolved governments jointly set up a new ‘Office of Climate Responsibility’ to test every action by government, the private sector and civil society against climate change targets.
Like the Office of Budget Responsibility, it would provide rapid reaction in each parliament of the UK on whether Ministers were living up to green pledges.
The paper also backs a UK wide Agency on Climate Cooperation– chaired by the First Minister of Scotland – to direct investment on the coming green revolution and calls on all Governments to do more to inspire community action, and individual and social activism.
Writing the foreword to the paper, former Scottish Green party leader Robin Harper, the chair of OSF’s Environmental Commission writes: “We need to co-operate rather than compete; we need constructive dialogue; and in the face of the environmental emergency that looms, we should be abandoning the toxic binary politics of today in favour of constructive dialogue.”
The call for a UK wide shake-up follows warnings this week by Chris Stark, chief executive of the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) that targets set by the Scottish Government to slash carbon by 75% of 1990 levels by 2030 are likely to be “enormously challenging” without “deep cooperation with UK policies for decarbonising”.
Today’s OSF report confirms official figures which show that, between 2016 and 2019, the rapid process of decarbonisation in Scotland has stalled.
Scottish Government figures show that in 2016, 48.5 mega-tonnes of Co2 were released into the atmosphere; by 2019, the figure had fallen to just 47.8 mega-tonnes.
The OSF report warns that the 2030 target set by the Scottish Government is implausible on current trends.
It concludes: “The data shows that progress in reducing emissions in most sectors has stagnated. Between 2016 and 2019, the figures have flatlined. This puts the Scottish Government’s target to slash carbon emissions by 75% by 2030 into stark relief. Bluntly, if the figures for 2016-19 are repeated over the coming three years, then the legally-enshrined target set by the Scottish Parliament becomes a practical impossibility.”
The OSF paper says a new Office for Climate Responsibility would be given legal status to ensure all government activity is compliant with net zero timescales. It would also advise on local delivery – such as the reduction in new road building.
The paper also backs the creation of a new UK Agency for Climate Cooperation Acceleration, made up of devolved governments, English regions and the UK Government, to coordinate strategic projects across the country – such as new renewable energy projects, rail network improvements, and reforestation.
And it urges governments to encourage a post-Covid revival of community action across the UK, in supporting voluntary groups to gain valuable skills through restoring community assets and natural heritage sites, or hosting international ‘Attenborough Scholarships’ and exchanges.
In his foreword, Mr Harper adds: “Scotland has been handed the advantage of the biggest wind energy resource in Europe. We have already been criticised – quite rightly – for the absence of meaningful detail and lack of obvious strategies to achieve our other announced targets.
He added: “This report by Peter Wood will help to set us on the right road, opening up a wide range of areas for discussion and the development of common strategies to take us more safely forward”.
Notes
Earlier this week, Mr Stark told the BBC’s Not Hot Air that the Scottish Government’s 75% target was “an enormously challenging target.” He added: “It rests on Scotland doing more and earlier than the rest of the United Kingdom. So far I haven’t seen a strategy from the Scottish Government that would deliver that. It is a very good challenge in the year of COP for the Scottish Government to come up with that but it also rests on deep cooperation with UK policies for decarbonising and I’m afraid that is another area where we are not seeing that kind of coordination.”
Figures for Scottish emissions can be found here.
About the Author
Dr Peter Wood is a sustainability researcher with over ten years experience in policy and behaviour change. He is currently an Associate Lecturer in Environmental Studies, Science and Management at The Open University in Scotland. He lives in Edinburgh.
UK Wide Cooperation Ensures “Best Is Yet To Come” In North Sea
The future of the Scotland’s vital North Sea industry can be supported by the UK’s “collective strength and resource”, a new report by a leading energy expert concludes today.
Written by Nick Butler, the founding chair of the Policy Institute at King’s College London, the report – entitled “Co-Op 26: how cooperation can spur Scotland’s green revolution” – argues that “the best is yet to come” for Scotland’s energy sector if it can seize huge new opportunities and transition from oil and gas to renewables.
It argues that Scotland’s prospects are best achieved by remaining an active and influential player within the UK. “As part of the UK Scotland has a voice. Alone, that voice would carry no weight,” he says.
He concludes: “The necessary transformation in the energy market in UK and across the world will be rich in jobs. For Scotland there is the opportunity of playing a major role in creating the technical and industrial base which will support that transformation. If that opportunity can be grasped, however good the last half century has been, the best is yet to come.”
A leading energy expert, who has advised both Norway’s state energy company and the UK Government, Mr Butler is a regular contributor to the Financial Times on energy issues, having spent nearly three decades working for BP.
The paper focusses on several of the key areas for potential growth in the new “green market” economy.
In the report, Mr Butler says there is “no reason” why Scotland and the UK cannot become a global leader in decommissioning work, as rigs are dismantled over the coming years. He argues that with development to the UK grid, Scotland could export more renewable electricity to the wider UK market, and to Europe via a new North Sea grid. The report also concludes that Scotland is “well placed” to take advantage of the development of hydrogen and carbon capture into the 2030s.
The report concludes that all these measures are best achieved by being part of a wider pan-UK plan. On the potential impact of independence, he adds: “At a time when public policy is understandably focused on maximising employment an unhappy divorce is likely to encourage any Government in London to focus its own spending and investment on its own citizens. The trade in electricity for instance from Scotland to England and the rest of the UK could easily be substituted by other sources.”
On the forthcoming COP 26 conference in Glasgow, he adds: “For Scotland, COP26 offer the chance not just to provide hotel rooms and hospitality but also long-term leadership. Such steps of course can only be taken if Scotland is part of the United Kingdom with full access to Britain’s collective strengths and resources. To those who say the UK Government’s policies are too vague and inadequate the answer to lead the process of developing them, providing answers and ideas.”
Professor Jim Gallagher, chairman of Our Scottish Future said: “Nick Butler is an acknowledged energy expert and, in this paper, he shows how Scotland can leverage its membership of the UK to accelerate the essential transition to green energy and create jobs when doing so. A new kind of North Sea revolution.”
Nick Butler is a Visiting Professor at King’s College London and the founding Chairman of the Kings Policy Institute. He chairs Promus Associates, The Sure Chill Company and Ridgeway Information Ltd. From 2007 to 2009 he was Chairman of the Cambridge Centre for Energy Studies. He was a special adviser to the former British prime minister Gordon Brown from 2009 to 2010. He served as a non executive Director of Cambridge Econometrics from 2010 to 2018. He was appointed in 2018 to the expert panel of advisers for The Faraday Institution, which works on the development of batteries and energy storage. Having served as a Member of the Strategic Advisory Council of the Norwegian state company Equinor (formerly Statoil) he is currently editor of the Energy Agenda for the Norwegian based energy organisation ONS.
