By Chris Bond and Will Sutton
In Scotland, opinion polls indicate a dilemma in peoples’ minds:
There is strong agreement we must reduce our carbon emissions to mitigate against temperature rise and climate change which will, if not controlled, bring devastating impacts on people’s lives globally.
But there is public resistance to paying the costs and suffering the disturbance of the individual measures imposed by government regulation, especially those affecting homes.
For the Scottish Government to meet its plan to hit net zero emissions by 2045, Ministers need to find a way to connect delivery to reality: so that net zero is delivered in a way that provides value for money for hard-pressed households across Scotland.
Our new paper, available to read here, argues that fast-tracking energy efficiency retrofit plans should be a priority for the new Scottish Government and the next UK Government.
This is a way both to reduce energy usage and to cut fuel poverty for families currently facing destitution to the high cost of living.
And we see a delivery model. We propose a Delivery Plan managed by a Project Delivery Taskforce under the umbrella of Great British Energy, the proposed national energy company that is to be set up in the event of a Labour victory in the coming general election..
This would be headquartered in Scotland but networked at national, regional and local level. This will offer citizens value for money and defuse much public dissatisfaction.
Scotland has had enough of unrealistic target-making: it is time for the focus to fall on delivery, to support both our ambition to hit net zero and to support the tens of thousands of Scottish families in fuel poverty.
The authors are engineers with a lifetime’s experience in the offshore industry
